


John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas

by earlgreytea68



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-22 12:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here in America, we have these terrible holiday movies that play pretty much constantly through December. They are all startlingly simple and straightforward--quirky girl and quirky boy meet under quirky circumstances, fall in love, and discover the True Meaning of Christmas--and they are all filled with a tremendous amount of Christmas tropes, like holly and mistletoe and cute little children and even cuter pets. I was watching one a few weeks ago and thought, Wouldn't it be fun to write a terrible holiday film starring John and Sherlock? 
> 
> And here it is. It's only half-written at this point (I just started it ten days ago! I'm working as fast as I can!), but I wanted to start posting it before the Christmas season was entirely over. 
> 
> Because this is stupid and silly and I wanted it be a no-pressure Christmas gift for my poor betas and Britpicks who I otherwise swamp with stuff, it's unbeta'd and un-Britpicked. I tried to be good about looking up UK Christmas traditions, but I've probably failed in places. If it's little things, let me know. If the entire premise of the fic makes no sense, well, I guess that's a risk you take with crackfics like this one!
> 
> I hope all of you celebrating had an absolutely wonderful holiday!
> 
> (Also, this story is completely unconnected with John Watson's Twelve Things Happy People Do. I just couldn't resist the similar title.)
> 
> This story is being translated into Chinese by Flora. It can be found here: http://www.mtslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=83900
> 
> Also, please enjoy this awesome fanart by Tumblr user ahanahana: http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/46396453071/ahanahana-christmas-elf-johnlock-omg-you#notes

John Watson was an elf. 

An entire adolescence of enduring comments about his stature, and he’d added insult to injury by literally becoming an _elf_. Why had he ever thought this was a good idea?

Well, John reminded himself, because his bank account balance was actually less than zero. He had _negative_ money. He needed a job, and it was Christmastime, and it turned out no one blinked about overqualifications when the previous elf had been fired after screaming at a bunch of terrified children that they should stop crying. All the bloke who’d hired John had wanted to know was if he thought he could make it through the day of marshaling lines of cranky, whiney children toward Father Christmas’s lap without snapping at any of them and generally behaving like a jovial, good-natured Santa’s Elf. 

“Yes,” John had said. “I can absolutely do that.” Easy as pie, he’d thought. 

He was reconsidering this by the end of his second hour, with a mother who was arguing with him that the prices being charged for a single photograph were exorbitant while her four-year-old triplets shouted an off-key “Last Christmas” at him. 

John agreed about the prices, secretly. He also thought he never wanted to hear “Last Christmas” ever again, especially not when shouted by four-year-olds, and the line was incredibly long and this woman was holding it up and it was ages until his break and meanwhile the toddler currently on Father Christmas’s lap was screaming bloody murder and Father Christmas—an oddly young man still suffering from spots that were being covered up by a scratchy nylon beard whose name was Brian—was calling out, “Uh, elf? A little help here?”

John glanced distractedly at Brian, where the toddler was squirming all about and the mother was saying, “Darling! He’ll bring you whatever you ask for! Do you want to ask for a pony?”

“A bit irresponsible,” said a voice from behind John, a deep, smooth, assured baritone. “Unless that mother is planning on purchasing a pony for that child for Christmas.”

Just what he needed, thought John. Someone preaching to the children in line that there was no such thing as Santa. 

“Think you could keep your voice down?” John snapped, glancing over his shoulder at whoever had spoken, and then his eyes widened, because it was another elf. Well, at least, it was another person dressed as an elf, although this elf was several inches taller than John and was wearing the ridiculous green costume as if he planned to walk down a runway in it. He was also wearing an expression of extreme condescending distaste that did not seem in keeping with jovial Santa’s Elfdom. “Who the hell are you?”

The man’s eyes shifted from Brian’s struggles over to John. They were the oddest eyes John had ever seen. Blue and green and gray and no color at all when you came right down to it. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said. 

“What kind of name is that for an elf?” demanded one of the four-year-old triplets, who had apparently decided to stop singing just in time. 

“Your nametag says your name is Jangle,” said another of the triplets. 

“That’s only because Jingle was taken,” said Sherlock Holmes, glaring at John as if he’d personally offended him. 

John glanced down at his nametag. _Jingle_ , it read. Oh, he thought. 

“Elf-person!” shouted Brian. “A little help here, please?”

John looked back to him, where the toddler was now kicking solidly at his shins. Brian was trying to shove him away, but the toddler’s mother kept nudging him closer to Brian. 

“Take care of this,” he told Sherlock Holmes, also known as Jangle the Elf, and hurried over to help Brian with his difficulties, and got a solid kick in his leg for the trouble. His bad leg. Bloody hell. 

He limped back over to where Sherlock was manning the cash register, where the triplets and their overbearing mother were nowhere to be seen. 

John looked around for them. “Where’d they go?”

“I told her to stop complaining about the price or I’d tell her husband about her string of lovers,” Sherlock answered, flatly. The mother who’d just handed over her money made a small shocked noise, and Sherlock smiled and said, “Happy Christmas,” as he returned her change. 

“Do you think that was wise?” John asked. 

Sherlock shrugged. “She _did_ have a string of lovers.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Can I borrow your phone?”

“What?”

“Mine doesn’t have service.”

“What do you need my phone for?”

Sherlock held out his hand confidently, waggling his fingers. 

“You’re supposed to be _working_ ,” John complained, although he’d been told he had this shift by himself, so he still wasn’t entirely sure what Sherlock was doing there. 

“Excuse me,” said the next mother in line, belligerently. “But d’you think you could finish this conversation later?”

“He’s not giving me his phone,” Sherlock told her. And then narrowed his eyes. “Hmm,” he said, and opened his mouth, drawing in a breath. 

John hurriedly fished his phone out and shoved it into Sherlock’s hand before Sherlock could say anything about this woman’s personal life. “Get out of the way,” he hissed, and gave him a little shove over to the side, before stepping in and sending a smile to the woman and her small, dazzled boy. “Welcome to Santa’s Grotto!” he said, as cheerfully as he could, to make up for the thing with Sherlock. 

Sherlock came back as John was finishing up the transaction, handing John back his phone. 

John took it and didn’t ask any questions because he was already helping the next customer. Sherlock, seeming to be feeling no compulsion to be working, leaned up against the counter next to John and folded his arms and said, “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John dropped the coins the father opposite him had just handed him, and used the time retrieving them to get his composure back. He waited until he’d finished the transaction with the father before saying to Sherlock, “How could you possibly know that?”

Sherlock looked bored. “Oh, please, ‘military’ is written all over the way you hold yourself. You’re tanned but not past your wrists, so you’ve been abroad but not on holiday. You walk with a limp but you’re not overly bothered by being on your feet all this time, so the limp’s at least partly psychosomatic. Wounded in traumatic, stressful conditions. Wounded in action. With a suntan. Which leaves us with Afghanistan or Iraq.”

“Merry Christmas,” said John to his next customer, finishing up the transaction, then turned on Sherlock, eyes narrowed. “All right, what is this, some sort of…background check…thing?”

“No,” said Sherlock, disconcerting eyes on John’s face. “A medical doctor working as an elf. Interesting.”

John decided he didn’t have time for this. “Do you think you could _help_?”

Sherlock looked genuinely confused. “Help with what?” 

“Help with your _job_ ,” John clarified, sarcastically. “Stand here, collect money, and don’t say anything other than ‘Merry Christmas.’”

Sherlock looked startled now. “What?”

John turned to the next customer, smiling sunnily. “Good afternoon, sir. Jangle the Elf is going to assist you today. Aren’t you, Jangle?”

Sherlock stared at him, and then John stepped hard on his foot. 

“Merry Christmas,” Sherlock bit out, wincing, and John, satisfied, went to untangle a fight happening between two little girls who had both asked for the same boy band member for Christmas. 

***

“Break time,” Sherlock said, and John looked up from the first little boy in a long time who was not crying on Brian’s lap. 

“You going to cover all of this?” John asked, unable to conceal his surprise, because he didn’t know if Sherlock was actually doing his job by the cash register—although at least there had been no commotion—and he didn’t quite trust him to handle all this chaos all at once. 

“No, we’re being relieved.” Sherlock nodded to another elf who was now working the register. “That is Snowflake.” Sherlock’s voice was heavy with drollness. 

John found his lips twitching into a smile. “Jangle?” he said. “Really? Did you choose that?”

“Of course I didn’t _choose_ it, don’t be idiotic,” Sherlock complained. “Come on.” He turned on his heel, heading out of Santa’s Grotto. 

John followed him for some reason. “I’m—”

“John Watson, I know,” Sherlock cut him off. 

“Who _are_ you?” John asked in confusion. 

“Jangle the Elf,” replied Sherlock. “Apparently.”

“No, seriously.” Sherlock walked outside into a blast of cold air, and John followed because he was being an idiot. “They told me I was alone for my shift.”

“What are you doing working as an elf?” Sherlock asked, lighting a cigarette. 

“Oh, God,” said John, and glanced around them. “Don’t _smoke_. Elves aren’t supposed to _smoke_.”

“You know we’re not really elves, right?”

John took the cigarette out of Sherlock’s mouth and stomped it out beneath his curled-toe boots. Sherlock looked so surprised that he was speechless. 

“Smoking is terrible for you,” John told him. 

“Stick a doctor in his elf suit, he’s still a doctor.”

“Stop it with the doctor thing.”

“Why? Aren’t you one?”

“I’m an elf in a department store.”

“And what do you do the other eleven months of the year?” asked Sherlock. 

John stopped himself from saying _Nothing, because I lost my career as a surgeon to a stupid gunshot wound when I was off in Afghanistan getting myself shot because I’m an idiot_. John said, “Make toys at the North Pole.”

Sherlock laughed. He had a pleasant laugh. It rippled under the collar of the green elf-coat John was wearing, dripped warmth along his skin, causing goosebumps to form. For the first time, doubtless because all the screaming children had been occupying most of his brain, John realized Sherlock Holmes was ridiculously good-looking, with those otherworldly eyes and razor-sharp cheekbones and exaggerated pout of a mouth, with licks of dark curls peeping out from underneath his elf hat. 

John told himself he shivered because it was cold. 

And then he was abruptly irritated. He had wanted an uncomplicated job with uncomplicated money, and now he had this tall, difficult, posh model of a co-worker to deal with. 

“What do you do the other eleven months of the year?” he asked, trying to keep the edge off of his voice and taking a surreptitious step away from the circle of Sherlock’s attractiveness. 

“Smoke,” drawled Sherlock, and John laughed in spite of himself. 

And that was when Brian came barreling out of the department store behind them, shedding Father Christmas items as he darted across the street, causing traffic to snarl into blaring horns and squealing brakes. 

Sherlock took off after him, his elf-hat tumbling to the ground, and John blinked for a moment, watching him dart out into the same traffic, and then said, “What the hell…” before deciding there was nothing for it but to follow. 

Brian had disappeared into a waiting car that went squealing off, and Sherlock shouted at John, “Get that cab!” and pointed wildly, before crouching down and peering at the pavement. 

John, bewildered, flagged down the cab and held it as Sherlock came dashing over, barreled in, gasped to the driver, “Canary Wharf,” and then snapped at John, “Coming?”

“What?” said John, even as he got into the cab. 

“Quickly,” snapped Sherlock to the driver. “I’m not paying for you to sit here trying to determine how to shift the car into first.”

John stared, as the cab jerked into movement, because he didn’t know what else to do. Sherlock had a mobile in his hand and was typing on it energetically. 

“You have questions,” he announced, without looking up. 

_Obviously_ , thought John. “Yeah. What the hell is going on?”

“A robbery,” replied Sherlock, still typing. “Because people are _imbeciles_.”

“Did Brian steal something?”

“No.”

“Then why are we chasing him?”

“We’re not chasing him. We’re going to Canary Wharf.” 

“For what?”

“To deal with imbeciles.” Sherlock, with an expression of distaste, tucked his mobile away into his pocket. 

John considered if he had any further questions. He did, of course, but it didn’t seem as if Sherlock was the best at answering questions. He just said, “You’re not really an elf, are you?”

Sherlock looked at him, startled, and then laughed. 

***

Once they got to Canary Wharf, they went into a bank and then swiftly into more impressive offices, and Sherlock kept calling him “Dr. Watson” and insisting that he was a colleague, and finally Sherlock shouted at a man in an expensive business suit for interfering with Sherlock’s investigation and tipping Brian off and jeopardizing the entire operation, and when the man threatened to call the police, Sherlock encouraged him to. 

John hung back and bit his tongue and tried to determine how he’d got himself into this situation, standing in an elf suit in an expansive office, next to another man in an elf suit who had just had the police called on him. 

When the police arrived, though, they seemed to listen to Sherlock, who spoke to them urgently—although no less condescendingly—about codes and passwords and safes, and then the police dashed off into action, with the man in the expensive business suit chasing after them in alarm. 

Sherlock stood in the middle of the now empty office and watched them passively. 

John stood next to him. “You probably should have told them about the robbery in progress first, before yelling at them.”

“Then they wouldn’t have listened to me yelling at them, and I needed them to listen.”

“Of course you did,” said John. “Not quite understanding what you needed me for.”

“It’s always useful to have a doctor at one’s side. Lends credibility to the entire affair. Even when that doctor is dressed as an elf.”

John gritted his teeth and said, “I’m not a doctor anymore.”

“Also,” said Sherlock, turning to him, “you left your cane at Santa’s Grotto.” Sherlock winked at him, and then turned and left the office, managing to look dignified even in his elf suit. 

John stood still for a long time, concentrating on not having a limp, on not falling over, and when he finally took his first few steps out of the office, Sherlock had long since vanished. 

***

John returned to the department store to find his boss absolutely furious over the desertion of his Santa and his elf, and when John mentioned that _two_ elves had in fact deserted their posts, he had looked blank. 

“You know,” John said. “The tall, posh, detective bloke with the dark hair and the eyes and cheekbones.”

His boss looked at him like he’d lost his mind and said, handing across his cane, “Don’t bother coming back here. Leave the costume in your locker.”

Excellent, thought John. Predictable. 

He limped back to his dismal flat and laid down on the hard, flat bed. The limp had come back as soon as he’d been handed back the cane. Or maybe it had been attached to his termination. John lay on the bed for a long time feeling sorry for himself, and then had an idea and managed to gather up enough energy to reach for his laptop. He ignored the empty blog post screen taunting him and instead Googled _Sherlock Holmes_. He spent the rest of the night reading a far-fetched website called “The Science of Deduction” and growing more and more skeptical. He fell asleep as dawn was breaking and when he woke in the early afternoon he thought it was possible the entire previous day had been a dream. 

Except for his renewed unemployment. He had managed to fail dismally at being an elf. He hadn’t even lasted one day. 

“Bah humbug,” John said to the ceiling over his head, and tried to think of what other jobs he might be suited for. 

And then there was a knock on the door. A knock. On his door. John stared at it and wondered if he was hallucinating, or still asleep. No one ever came to see him. He didn’t really _know_ anyone who would come to see him. 

Curious, John rolled himself out of bed and padded over to the door and pulled it open. 

On Sherlock Holmes. He looked different without his elf costume. He looked _better_. He was all artfully tumbled curls and luxuriously tailored clothing, a dramatic coat with a collar begging to be tugged on, a scarf settled in the long alluring curve of his neck. John was suddenly abruptly aware of the fact that he’d apparently thought it a good idea to answer his door in boxer shorts. 

Which Sherlock took in immediately, and John, embarrassed, resisted the urge to grab at the nearest object and put it in front of his crotch like an idiot. 

“You weren’t at work,” said Sherlock, and brushed past him into John’s flat without waiting to be invited. 

John turned, shocked and horrified, because Sherlock’s gaze was now sweeping over the flat and that was worse than it sweeping over John. The flat was the sorriest little place. Neat as a pin, because old army habits died hard, but depressing as hell, and John was appalled that Sherlock was even _in_ it, never mind so obviously inspecting it. Sherlock looked a little like a peacock who’d landed in a pigeon roost. 

“Um,” said John. “I was _fired_. No thanks to you.” John hurried past Sherlock and twitched the covers into place on his rumpled bed. And wondered why he didn’t tell Sherlock to leave. 

“Fired?” echoed Sherlock, sounding confused. “For what?”

“For running off after you and Brian and leaving Santa’s Grotto completely unattended,” snapped John, losing his temper a little bit at Sherlock’s apparent cluelessness over how _employment_ worked. 

Sherlock regarded him for a long moment, pale eyes curious. And then he ventured, cautiously, “You know that there’s no Santa Claus, right, John?”

John rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, my God, what are you _doing_ here?”

“I was just _checking_ ,” said Sherlock, affronted. “It’s just that everyone seems obsessed with making sure Brian the would-be grand larcenist was hearing terrified children ask for things their parents prompted them to ask for. Everyone goes utterly mad at Christmastime, it’s horrible.”

“Mm-hmm,” said John, noncommittally, because he wasn’t interested. “How did you even get hired to be an elf with an attitude like that? Oh, wait, you _weren’t_ hired, because now my ex-boss thinks I have mental issues because I was babbling about a tall elf named Jangle. And you are much too tall to be an elf, you know.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows raced upwards, toward the curls falling poetically over his alabaster forehead like he was a bloody Romantic poet. “ _That’s_ your issue with my being an elf? That I’m too _tall_?”

“Yes,” said John, stubbornly. 

“I was undercover,” said Sherlock. 

“That was the most obvious bit of undercover work I’ve ever seen anyone perform.”

“Do you see a lot of people perform undercover work?” asked Sherlock, curiously. 

“On the telly,” John answered, defensively. 

Sherlock waved his hand about dismissively. “It would all have gone perfectly if that moron at the bank hadn’t sent his own private security in to monitor Brian, causing the whole operation to move up its timeline and causing Brian to spook and causing massive chaos when I had everything under control. It had to do with the children’s Christmas wish list, you know. People choose the most sentimental and obvious passwords. Idiots.”

John didn’t quite follow that speech, but he didn’t think he even wanted to take the effort to follow it. Sherlock was standing in the middle of his flat, hands deep in his coat, and John was barely dressed, and they were talking about undercover work, and John had no job and a lot of bills and needed to be out searching for employment, not standing here having this odd conversation. “Is there a reason you’re here?” And then something occurred to John. “Wait a second. How did you know I live here?”

Sherlock had the grace to shift his weight a bit, as if he knew he shouldn’t have known where John lived. He looked very slightly chagrined. 

“I suppose anyone who claims to be able to identify a software designer by his tie is going to be able to find out where I live,” remarked John, resigned. 

Sherlock perked up. “You looked me up on the Internet.”

“I did. Found your website.”

“What’d you think?”

Sherlock was practically beaming. John gave him a dubious look that caused his face to fall, and then John felt terrible about it, but really, the whole thing was outrageous and unbelievable. 

“I knew right away that you had to have served in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Sherlock pointed out, sulkily. 

“Yes, that was clever of you.”

“Do you think so?” Sherlock looked almost hopeful at that. 

“Of course. Unless you just…researched me. How did you know the rest of it? That I was a doctor? That I live here?”

“Not just a doctor,” said Sherlock, “a surgeon. You’re smooth with your hands, practiced, steady, self-assured, but every once in a while there’s an intermittent tremor. You were used to working with your hands, and now you can’t anymore. Surgeon, injured, working as an elf in a department store. Fighting with his brother.”

“What?” said John. 

Sherlock was almost fidgeting in his eagerness to get it out. “Your phone. It’s an expensive model. Look at what you _wear_ , look at where you _live_. You’re not about flash. And you’re working as a department store elf, you’re clearly desperate for money. And, anyway, the phone doesn’t have your name on it, engraved with Harry Watson. Not your father, the phone is a young man’s gadget. Unlikely it’s a cousin. If you had a close extended family, you’d go to them for help. So, brother, then. The phone was a gift, it says so on the engraving, from a significant other, indicated by the _xxx_. Expensive model, so probably a wife, not a girlfriend. The model’s only six months old, and it wasn’t taken care of by your brother—you’d be careful with a luxury item like that—so the marriage is in trouble. You’re working as a department store elf instead of going to your brother for help, so you must disapprove. Maybe you liked his wife. Maybe you don’t like his drinking.”

John blinked. “His drinking.”

“He’s an alcoholic, your brother, isn’t he?” asked Sherlock, steadily. 

“How can you possibly know that?” countered John, in amazement. 

“Scratch marks around the charging port on the phone. Every night, he had difficulty plugging it in. You never see a sober man’s phone with those marks, never see a drunk’s phone without them. How’d I do?”

“That was brilliant,” John exclaimed, because he couldn’t help it. 

Sherlock preened, looking even more like an exotic bird landed in John’s flat. “Do you think so?”

“Of course. You know it was. It was fantastic.”

“That’s not what people normally say,” said Sherlock. 

“What do people normally say?”

“Piss off.”

John laughed, and after a moment Sherlock flickered a smile at him, looking uncertain whether the laughter was a good thing. 

“So how did I do?” Sherlock asked. 

“You’re right.”

“About all of it?” Sherlock looked extra-pleased with himself. 

“Except Harry’s short for Harriet.”

Sherlock frowned thunderously now, like Harry had purposely made her name difficult just to trip him up. “Sister!” he exclaimed. “It’s always something!”

John smiled, because he was kind of adorable in the level of indignation he had achieved. He thought he should be a better host, he should offer something to drink, or to take his coat, or to—Wait. What was Sherlock even _doing_ there? “Why are you here?” John remembered to ask. 

Sherlock looked immediately awkward. He settled down more heavily into the turned-up collar of his dramatic coat. He looked around the flat. He looked back at John. John waited, curious and patient, but he did not at all anticipate what Sherlock said next. Which was: “What are you doing for Christmas?”

John didn’t know what to make of this question. “Sorry?”

“You’re feuding with your sister currently, it seemed unlikely to me that you were spending Christmas Day with her.”

Sherlock was right about that. John had put his foot down that he wasn’t going to continue to enable Harry, that he wasn’t going to see her again unless it was to take her to rehab. Which meant he had been facing a Christmas Day on his own. John hadn’t really thought far enough in advance about what that Christmas Day might entail. Probably nothing. Probably sitting around watching the Queen’s Speech by himself. John glanced around his flat, noting the utter lack of Christmas decorations anywhere in it, and conceded that it must be obvious to Sherlock, who seemed to see everything, that John wasn’t too preoccupied with Christmas. 

“I have a proposition for you,” continued Sherlock, when John didn’t say anything. 

John looked back at him, having a sudden vision of Sherlock whipping out a pile of cash in exchange for some sort of sexual favor, because John couldn’t see what else Sherlock might want from him by way of a proposition, and John was _definitely not_ going to shag Sherlock Holmes. Well. Not for money. He had _standards_. He hadn’t hit bottom yet. If Sherlock wanted a shag, John thought he could probably be persuaded to give it to him for free. 

John also thought he should probably not say that out loud, because he was acting like a lunatic here. 

“I would like you to come with me to my mother’s for Christmas,” said Sherlock. 

John had had a response prepared to _I would like you to take off your pants_. John did not have a response prepared for this. So he said a strangled, “What?”

Sherlock, the initial question out of the way, seemed to gain confidence. He spoke with a casual authoritative ease. “The estate is in Northumberland. We’d have to go up on the 23rd, and then stay through to the 6th. Mother’s obsessed with this idea that there ought to be twelve days of Christmas.” 

“You want me to go to your mother’s house for Christmas for _two weeks_?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” John was flabbergasted. 

“Because you need the money.”

“You’re going to pay me for this? _Why_?”

Sherlock was back to looking awkward, which John took as a sign that he’d asked the right question. “Because I…Because I may have said, last Christmas, that I’d…bring someone home with me this Christmas. And if I don’t, then Mother was going to…set me up with…someone.” Sherlock spoke with an expression full of disgust. 

John stared at him. “Okay,” he said, surprised by how even and calm his voice was. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go to Christmas at your mother’s house, for two weeks, and pretend to be your boyfriend.”

Sherlock looked pleased at John’s cleverness. “Yes. Exactly. You are bisexual, aren’t you?”

“I’m not even going to ask how you knew that. And your mother knows that you’re gay?”

“Oh, yes. There won’t be any drama. And don’t worry, there won’t be any sex.”

“Ah, so you’re not going to treat me _exactly_ like a common prostitute,” drawled John. “Good to know.”

“It’s a pleasant estate. Mother really wouldn’t bother us very much, aside from dinnertime. You could sightsee or just sit by the fire and read a book. It would be nothing at all.” Sherlock paused and played his trump card. “And I’d pay you,” he reminded John. 

John heard himself say, “How much?” and thought to himself, _No, no, no, you’ve gone mad, you’re not going to pretend to be this person’s boyfriend for two weeks, you just met this person, he could be luring you out to the countryside to kill you and eat you, don’t do this._

Sherlock said, as if he knew exactly the impact it would have, his gray-green-blue eyes even and steady on John’s, “Name your price.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock couriered over—delivered by a somewhat dubious-looking messenger—what could only be called a dossier. It had an address scrawled on the first page in hurried, abrupt handwriting. _221B Baker Street._ And then, underneath that, _23 Dec., noon_. John assumed that was the date and time that he was supposed to meet Sherlock. 

The rest of the dossier was a list of facts, but the sort of facts one might give one’s doctor or potential employer. Things like height and weight and eye color. ( _Blue_ , that read, but John disagreed with that assessment. John had blue eyes; Sherlock had what-the-hell-color- _is_ -that eyes.) Sherlock’s birthday was apparently January 6, which explained why his mother insisted he stay through that date. His middle name was Basil, and there was an incomplete sketch of his schooling and employment history. Eton, a scattering of Cambridge, a couple of notes of odd jobs here and there (bee-keeping, laboratory technician, judo instructor). None of the jobs seemed to last more than a couple of weeks, judging by the dates next to them, and there were huge gaps with no employment or schooling at all, nothing, just blankness on the paper. The last few years were covered by something called “consulting detective.” John had no idea what that meant. 

John wondered if he was supposed to give Sherlock a copy of his own resume, then decided that Sherlock already seemed to know more about him than he’d ever wanted him to, so there was no need to give him more information. Instead, John turned his attention to worrying about what he ought to pack for this mad trip he’d decided to take. He thought of Sherlock’s bespoke suit in the flat that day. He had nothing that could come close to that. He packed his one sorry, dejected tie and settled for a bunch of vaguely festive jumpers that would hopefully be considered acceptable attire. He had no way to contact Sherlock to ask otherwise, other than to just show up at 221B Baker Street, and that seemed like an insane thing to do. (John acknowledged that his judgment on what may and may not be insane was apparently impaired at the moment, though.) 

He heard nothing from Sherlock beyond the dossier, and John began to wonder if he’d made the whole thing up in some kind of stress-induced hysteria. But he still made his way to 221B Baker Street at the appointed time on the twenty-third of December. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. 221 Baker Street was right next to a café, and John rang the bell for “B,” and the door was opened by an older woman dressed in purple who gave him such a delighted look that John wracked his brain to recall if he’d met her before. 

“Oh, _look_ at you!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you _lovely_?”

“Er,” said John. “Hello?” he offered. 

“Sherlock has been keeping you _such_ a secret. But then, he always does when it comes to the boyfriends. Do you know, you’re the first one I’ve ever even got the chance to meet!”

“Oh,” said John, trying not to sound as confused as he felt, because surely his “boyfriend” should have mentioned this woman to him. It couldn’t be Sherlock’s mother, they were _going_ to Sherlock’s mother’s. So that meant she must be… John’s thoughts trailed off into helplessness.

“He hasn’t mentioned me,” concluded the woman. “That’s so like him.” There was the sound of quick steps descending stairs, and the woman turned and said, disapprovingly, “Sherlock. Didn’t you—”

“Hello, John,” said Sherlock, sweeping past the woman, pulling on gloves, and kissing John’s cheek in such a flurry that John barely registered the flutter of it before it was gone and he tried to react the way a normal boyfriend would react. Sherlock turned back to the woman, saying, “Dr. John Watson.” And then, to John, “This is Mrs. Hudson. My landlady.”

“Ah,” said John, and shook Mrs. Hudson’s hand, then decided to kiss it, which made her blush and look flustered. “Lovely to meet you. You must be a saint to put up with him.” 

It was a shot in the dark, but John thought it a fairly safe bet that Sherlock was a terrible tenant. It might not be that hard, John decided, to pretend to be the boyfriend of a man who apparently didn’t tell anyone about anything as a matter of course. Mrs. Hudson confirmed this by saying in reply, “No more than you,” beaming as she said it. 

“Must be off,” Sherlock cut in, and then leaned past John to give Mrs. Hudson’s cheek a kiss. 

“Have a lovely Christmas, boys,” said Mrs. Hudson. 

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Hudson,” John said, politely, as Sherlock dashed away. 

“ _So_ nice to meet you,” gushed Mrs. Hudson. 

John turned, finding Sherlock standing by the open door of the black car that had been idling on the street and that John had paid no attention to. Apparently it was their ride. John supposed he should stop being surprised at the little indications of Sherlock’s level of wealth—as if the essentially jobless job history hadn’t been evidence enough—and slid into the car. Sherlock followed him, and the car glided into motion immediately. 

John looked at Sherlock, who was gazing out the window and seemed disinclined to speak. Well, thought John. This was awkward. They certainly didn’t seem like a happy couple at the moment. 

“I wish you’d stop calling me a doctor,” John said, finally. 

“You are a doctor,” Sherlock replied, brusquely. 

“No, I’m not.”

“They haven’t revoked your license, and you still hold your medical degree. Hence, you are a doctor. I see you’re back to the cane.”

“Because I have a limp, Sherlock,” said John, stubbornly.

Sherlock made a skeptical, dismissive noise. “Did you receive the information I sent you?”

“Yeah,” said John, shortly, because Sherlock was _irritating_. 

“I trust you memorized it? What’s my middle name?”

“It’s Basil,” said John. “But what was the point of sending me all that stuff?”

Sherlock turned to him for the first time, looking surprised. “We’re dating. We have to know things about each other.”

“Middle names? That’s what you’re worried about us not knowing? What about, I don’t know, favorite movies? What’s your favorite movie? I’m very partial to James Bond films. What do you think about those?”

Sherlock looked at him blankly for a moment, then said, “I don’t watch _movies_ ,” as if John had asked him if he danced on the ceiling. 

“Okay,” John considered. “Well. Favorite food, then? You have to eat, right?”

Sherlock stared at him, still looking blank. 

“No favorite food,” John concluded. “Favorite color at least? Mine is red.”

Sherlock drew his eyebrows together and looked at John as if he were an amazing curiosity. 

“Fine,” sighed John. “When your mother asks me what we talk about, I’ll just tell her we spend all of our time shagging.”

Sherlock frowned briefly and went back to looking out the window, and John settled in for what was apparently going to be an uncomfortably silent trip to Northumberland. Then Sherlock abruptly shifted in his seat to look straight at John. “Is that what people talk about? People who are dating?”

John looked at him in confusion. “In my experience. What do you usually talk about with the people you’re dating?”

Sherlock didn’t deign to answer that question. Sherlock went back to looking out the window, and after John had once again decided he wasn’t going to say anything, he ventured, into the quiet of the car, “I quite like tea.”

“Do you?” said John, because he supposed it was something. 

Sherlock had turned away from the window, although he wasn’t looking at John so much as staring into space. He looked thoughtful. “Yes. Tea.”

“Good to know. I like tea as well. There you go. Something in common.”

Sherlock looked at him then. “You know we’re not _actually_ dating.”

“I am aware of that, but it would be easier to keep the fiction up if we could come up with some reasons why we would spend time with each other.”

“You are not entirely an idiot,” suggested Sherlock. “So there’s that.”

“Thank you,” responded John, dryly. “High praise coming from my fake boyfriend.”

Sherlock shrugged. “We spend time together because we like each other. Isn’t that how it goes, this dating business?”

John decided he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this conversation. He decided that, if pressed, he would say he was fascinated by Sherlock’s cleverness, and he would leave it to Sherlock to come up with something he liked about John. So John changed the subject. “How did we meet?”

Sherlock cocked his head at him. “You know how we met.”

“Are you going to tell your mother that we met while you were undercover and I was working as a Christmas elf? Won’t it be suspicious that we met just recently and you’re already taking me home for Christmas?”

Sherlock considered. “Why would people care how we met?”

“Have you ever done this before?” John asked. 

“Brought home a fake boyfriend for Christmas?”

“No, brought home a _boyfriend_ , for any reason whatsoever.”

“No,” said Sherlock, with the air of _Why would I ever have done something so ridiculous?_

“I have. Let me tell you: They’re going to want to know how we met.”

Sherlock sighed heavily. “We’ll say you treated me for something. I get in lots of scrapes, they’d find that believable.”

“I am not a doctor,” John reminded him, between gritted teeth. 

“You’re a surgeon—”

“I _was_ a surgeon.”

“You were an excellent surgeon, I read all about it. A very good, very talented surgeon.”

“Right. Who now has permanent nerve damage—”

“That has to do with your hands, not your brain. You still have a surgeon’s brain.”

“I am not a doctor. Don’t tell your mother I’m a doctor.”

“What am I going to tell her, then? I can’t tell her you’re a Christmas elf. Shall I just tell her you’re a kept man?”

It was an unavoidably good point, and John hated it. He hated that he didn’t know what to tell people about himself anymore. It was frustrating in a way that made him feel helpless. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Fine. Tell her I _used_ to be a doctor.”

“We’ll stick with the truth. An army doctor, injured in the war, just sent back home, in the process of determining what next to do. I happened to run into you after a scuffle with a suspect. In a park, perhaps.”

“Regents Park,” said John. “You were bleeding from a nasty gash in your forehead and I insisted on ducking you into the nearest café to clean you up to make sure you didn’t need stitches.”

“I didn’t need stitches,” said Sherlock. 

“No,” agreed John. “But you did buy me a cup of coffee out of gratitude. And that’s how we met.”

“Good story.” Sherlock looked admiring of John’s fictionalization skills. 

“Yes, well,” said John. “Maybe I should be a writer for my next career.”

***

It was dark by the time they reached their destination. It wasn’t late, but the early winter night gave the impression that it was. John had to confess that he hadn’t really noticed the passage of time. He had asked Sherlock what a consulting detective was and been treated to a series of fascinating vignettes about cases Sherlock had had, and that had made the afternoon fly by. Sherlock was the strangest person John had ever met, and John had always had a weakness for things that other people might find incomprehensible. Harry called this recklessness but John just called it natural curiosity. Harry would probably call what John was currently doing reckless, but, while John was driving toward an unknown house to play at being someone’s boyfriend, Harry was drinking herself to death, so maybe they needed to recalibrate the definition of the word “reckless.”

The house the car stopped at wasn’t quite a palace, but it was still ten times bigger than anywhere John had ever lived, and John tried not to feel hopelessly outclassed about the whole thing, as he followed behind Sherlock. He wondered if he should take Sherlock’s hand, make sure he was playing the role properly, but Sherlock didn’t seem like someone who would be demonstrably affectionate in public, so John decided to just follow his lead. 

The front door opened before they reached it, and someone said, very formally, “Master Sherlock. How very good to see you again.”

“Merry Christmas, Harrison,” said Sherlock, casually. “Where is everyone?”

“The drawing room,” answered the person called Harrison, now openly gaping at John, who had followed Sherlock into the house. 

John barely had time to smile at Harrison and to get the impression of a huge and richly decorated front hall before Sherlock grabbed his hand—ah, demonstrably affectionate after all?—and dragged him into a side room. The room was very large and very red and dominated by an enormous Christmas tree in front of the window and garlands of holly and ivy on every free surface, and there was a woman sitting in a chair by the fire and a man standing by the fireplace, elbow on the mantel. The man and the woman had been conversing but when Sherlock walked into the room, John in tow, they both stopped, looked up, and then fixed on John with expressions of bafflement. 

“Mycroft,” Sherlock said to the man by the fire. “Made it out of London so quickly? Is the planet going to keep turning without you in your office? Hello, Mother.” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over the cheek of the woman in the chair. “Merry Christmas.”

The woman in the chair—Sherlock’s mother—never even looked at Sherlock. She was still staring at John. She was an attractive woman, not as old as John had been expecting, with gray eyes and thick, dark hair that hinted at a wave, not as violent as Sherlock’s unruly curls. She said, eyes fixed on John, “Sherlock…”

“This is Dr. John Watson,” said Sherlock, and John heard the pride with which he delivered the introduction and wished, with a sudden pang that surprised him, that it were pride at having Dr. John Watson as a boyfriend to show off and not just pride at having won this contest with his mother. It would have been nice to be showed off by a boyfriend like a prize trophy, John had to admit. 

“Hello, Mrs. Holmes,” John said, deciding to play his role as well as he could, since he was being well-compensated for it. “Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for having me to stay.”

Mrs. Holmes blinked at him, astonished. 

“And this is my brother, Mycroft,” said Sherlock, nudging John a bit in the direction of the man by the fireplace. 

A brother, thought John. It would have been nice to have some forewarning about that. “Pleased to meet you,” John said, shaking Mycroft’s hand. “Sherlock’s told me so much about you.”

“No, I haven’t,” interjected Sherlock. “John’s just being polite. I haven’t mentioned you at all.”

“It’s true,” agreed John. “He actually hasn’t.”

Sherlock’s brother, much like Sherlock’s mother, just stared. 

“We’re going to get freshened up before dinner,” Sherlock announced, and just like that tugged John out of the room and up an enormous flight of stairs and then into a bedroom, where Sherlock closed the door and collapsed on the bed and rolled around, giggling. “That was _fantastic_ ,” he said. “You were _fantastic_.”

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” said John, watching Sherlock roll around in mirth. 

“And you invaded Afghanistan!” Sherlock pointed out, and that made John giggle, and then he found himself laughing, too, until he was collapsed on the bed beside Sherlock. 

The bed was very comfortable, and the bedspread was some sort of impossibly soft blue satin, and the ceiling over their head was painted with cherubs, all of whom seemed to have suffered terrible wounds and were dripping blood and gore. 

“Did you redecorate?” asked John, looking up at the ceiling. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, beside him.

“You’re not a very good artist, are you?”

Sherlock giggled again. He had a delightful laugh, and John wondered if he indulged it much. Up until that point, John had never had an impression that there was anything in light-hearted in Sherlock. But now he seemed playful and content and much younger than John had initially thought. John knew how young Sherlock was, of course, and there was an age difference between them, but it had not seemed so large when Sherlock had been grave and serious. Now it seemed a lifetime. John wondered if he had ever been so young, before war, and found it hard to remember. 

“You could have mentioned that you have a brother,” said John, finally, when Sherlock had settled into contented silence next to him. 

“He’s not important,” said Sherlock, and sat up. “You’ve time for a shower before dinner. If you wanted?”

John thought it would be nice to have a little time to himself, without the dizzying confusion of Sherlock and his family, so he said, “Yes. Thank you,” and Sherlock showed him to an en-suite and set him up with towels. John took a slightly longer shower than usual, delaying the moment when he would have to go back out and play his role. When he emerged, Sherlock was sitting at the room’s desk, clattering away on a laptop. 

“Ready?” he asked. 

“I think so. How do I look?”

“Fine,” said Sherlock. 

“You didn’t even look.”

“You look fine.”

_My God_ , thought John, _we sound exactly like a real couple_ , and he walked over and dug through his luggage until he produced the bottle of wine he’d brought. 

“What’s that?” asked Sherlock. 

“Wine for your mother.”

“For what?”

“It’s a hostess gift. I thought it would be polite.”

Sherlock looked suspicious. “Would a boyfriend do that?”

“A good boyfriend would, yes,” said John, stubbornly, and tucked the wine under his arm. “Let’s go.”

The dining room could probably have sat thirty, easily, but the table was set for four, clustered up at the end where the fireplace was. Sherlock’s mother and brother were already there, and they rose as Sherlock and John entered the room. 

“Forgive us,” said Sherlock’s mother, frowning at Sherlock. “Sherlock didn’t bother to tell us he was bringing a guest. I am Violet Holmes. Welcome to our home.” She extended a graceful hand. 

Because it had been such a hit with Mrs. Hudson, John kissed the hand and then presented her with the wine with a little flourish. 

“Oh,” she said, looking genuinely pleased. “How kind of you. Thank you.”

“Thank _you_. It is very kind of you to have me to your home.” John paused. “Even if Sherlock didn’t bother to give you a choice in the matter.”

“Well, you know how Sherlock is,” she laughed, gaily. “Please, have a seat. John, if you don’t mind, we’ll have your wine with dinner tonight. It should pair quite nicely with the menu.”

John was a little embarrassed, since it wasn’t like it was the world’s finest wine, but he didn’t want to insult what was really a very nice gesture, so he said, “Of course,” as he sat down, and Sherlock’s mother gestured for Harrison to come over and take the bottle of wine. 

“He has _manners_ ,” remarked Mycroft. “However did you manage that, Sherlock?”

Sherlock didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard the comment, and John found himself awkwardly caught, wondering if he should come to Sherlock’s defense and uncertain how to do it. 

Mycroft saved him from making a decision by saying, “So. Doctor Watson. Captain Watson. Of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.” Mycroft gestured to their surroundings upon saying “Northumberland.”

John had thought it was funny to find himself in Northumberland, but he was more concerned that John had never talked about his military background, not to Mycroft, not to Sherlock. “How did you—”

“Don’t bother, John,” Sherlock interrupted. “Mycroft will have gathered all there is to know about you already. Quite satisfied that he isn’t going to make off with the family silver in the night?”

Mycroft said nothing, although his eyes seemed meaningful on Sherlock’s face, but John tried in vain to read the expression in them. 

“So,” interjected Sherlock’s mother, gaily, “how did you two _meet_?”

John, feeling smug to already be proven correctly so early in the night, began, “Well. I was in Regents Park.”


	3. Chapter 3

John thought dinner was a huge success. There were no obvious moments when he felt like everyone would know that he knew very little about Sherlock, and really John was able to converse intelligently with Sherlock’s mother about London—which Sherlock’s mother was fond of—and about gardening—which John’s mother had been fond of. Sherlock and Mycroft both spent most of the dinner silent, but their mother seemed content to ignore them, and John had followed her lead. The food had been delicious, and John felt that he might just pull these two weeks off. 

And then he stood in Sherlock’s bedroom and looked at its single bed and thought he was insane. 

The bed was not small, but it was still just one bed, and John wondered if Sherlock was going to expect them to share it. John didn’t really want to share the bed. Sherlock was too attractive, and male anatomy was too untrustworthy. 

“I’ll take the floor,” he volunteered. 

“Nonsense,” said Sherlock. “You can’t possibly. Mycroft or Mother will know immediately, and how will we explain that?”

John fidgeted uncomfortably. “Sherlock…”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Sherlock, “I’m hardly going to ravish you in your sleep. Anyway, I don’t really sleep, so you’ll have the bed to yourself.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t sleep’?”

“I mean I don’t sleep. It’s a waste of time, isn’t it?”

“No, actually,” John told him. “It fulfills vital bodily needs.”

“Oh, _now_ you’re a doctor,” complained Sherlock, and sat at the desk and commenced to clattering away on his laptop again. 

John hesitated, then went to change for bed. He normally slept in boxers and a T-shirt, but he had bought pajamas especially for this trip. He felt like an idiot when he emerged from the bathroom wearing them, but Sherlock didn’t even look up at him. John hesitated for a second by the bed.

“I’m not going to steal your virtue,” Sherlock said, without looking up, and John thought he was being ridiculous and that, even they _did_ share the bed, it wouldn’t have had to be _sexual_ , so he got into bed. 

John looked up at the wounded cherubs on the ceiling and said, slowly, “Sometimes I get nightmares.”

There was a pause in the rhythm of Sherlock’s typing. 

“Don’t wake me up if I have one. I don’t want to hurt you,” said John, and then turned onto his side and tucked the blankets closely around him. 

Sherlock said nothing and, after a second, the typing resumed. 

***

John woke in the morning to find himself alone in the bedroom. The part of the bed next to him was completely undisturbed, so Sherlock had kept his promise not to sleep in it. John wondered if he really hadn’t slept at all the way he’d claimed he wouldn’t. 

John took his time showering, but Sherlock did not reappear, so John gave up and made his way downstairs. The house was large but it had a fairly straightforward set-up, as everything seemed to be in the main wing, so John set out confidently in search of the kitchen. He found Sherlock’s mother sitting in a cozy room in the back of the house, curled up by a window with a book open on her lap and a cup of something steaming in her hand. 

“Good morning, John,” she said to him, warmly, when she saw him. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Holmes,” he answered. 

“You must call me Violet,” she told him, with a curving smile. 

“Violet, then,” he smiled back. “I was looking for Sherlock. Have you seen him?”

“He is tramping about the grounds checking on his experiments.”

“Experiments?” echoed John. 

“Yes,” said Violet, and narrowed her eyes at him a little bit. “You know. Sherlock’s experiments.”

“Yes,” agreed John, slowly, backtracking a little. “I know about Sherlock’s experiments, I just didn’t know…he’d still have any _here_.”

“Ah,” said Violet, looking less suspicious, and John congratulated himself on his clever save. “Well, they are left over from his childhood. They are quite long-term experiments.”

“I see,” said John, and tried not to be awkward, but Sherlock was nowhere about and Sherlock was the only person here he knew. And he only vaguely knew Sherlock. 

Violet said, “You must be hungry. I can have something prepared for you.”

“Not really,” said John. “I’m not much of a breakfast person. But I’d love a cup of coffee.”

“Harrison,” called Violet, and Harrison appeared. John wanted to make a joke about a bell pull not being necessary but that seemed like poor form. “Can you bring Dr. Watson a cup of coffee?”

Harrison nodded, and John said, “No sugar, please. Thank you,” feeling like an idiot. 

“Won’t you have a seat?” offered Violet, gesturing toward one of the room’s chairs. 

John didn’t think he actually had much of a choice, so he sat, settling his cane next to him. 

“Wounded in battle?” guessed Violet, her eyes on the cane. 

_Yes and no_ , thought John, but said, because it was easier, “Yes.”

Violet nodded a bit. “It must bother you terribly, not to be as mobile as you once were. One gets the impression that you were used to being a very capable person.”

John could feel Violet’s keen eyes on him. He didn’t want to talk about this. He wanted to talk about anything but this. “It is what it is,” he said, simply, with a brittle smile in Violet’s direction. 

Violet looked thoughtfully at him. 

Harrison arrived with the coffee and John took a grateful sip of it, admiring the rest of the room and trying to ignore Violet’s sharp gaze. 

Finally Violet said, “You must know how unusual you are.”

“Unusual?” echoed John. 

“Yes. You must be. To have caught Sherlock’s interest.”

John hesitated, then said, truthfully, “I don’t know what about me has caught Sherlock’s interest.”

“I have two sons,” said Violet, apparently changing the subject. “Mycroft is the elder, by several years. He is more affectionate than he lets on, but he is generally even-keeled. Sherlock has always adored him. So Sherlock thinks that he must be the same way. When Sherlock is anything but. When Sherlock is all summits and valleys. Sherlock has a deep need to love and be loved. Sherlock just doesn’t know it.”

John didn’t know quite what to say to this. He didn’t know what Violet _wanted_ him to say. And it seemed almost unfair to Sherlock, to be told these things about him that he was sure Sherlock wouldn’t want him to know. John had known pretending to date Sherlock would expose him to an undeserved intimacy, but he hadn’t been prepared for how uncomfortable it would be to be given confidences he hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve. 

“Then again,” continued Violet, and her tone of voice turned light and casual. “We all of us know ourselves much less than we pretend.”

John wondered if that was aimed at him. He took a sip of coffee and turned everything over in his head, and then decided his best option was retreat. 

He stood. “I think,” he said, “I’ll go out and look for Sherlock.”

***

John had intended to look for Sherlock, and he did a bit, but he eventually found himself at the top of a little rise, where a bench had been situated to take advantage of the views, and he sat there and enjoyed the solitude, the fact that he didn’t have to play a part for a little while. He was still sitting there when the dog dashed by. Not really a dog so much as a large and uncoordinated puppy, a yellow Labrador retriever by the look of it, and as it came dashing up the hill, a little girl panting after it yelled, “Help! Stop him!”

John leaped up instinctively and raced after the puppy, who, assuming that John was playing, leaped around a bit, barking and wagging its tail, and finally John was able to lunge at it and hook a hand around its collar. The dog’s tail wagged even more enthusiastically and it slobbered kisses over John adoringly. 

The little girl came up, gasping for breath and exclaiming, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, and she fell to her knees and hugged the dog enthusiastically before then drawing back and saying, firmly, “Naughty!”

The dog kissed her cheek, and she giggled and looked at John. “He’s always running away.”

“Is he?” asked John. She was windblown and flushed and adorable with her puppy. 

“Mum says he thinks he’s a big hunting dog. He keeps going after the squirrels. I’m Annabel.”

“I’m John,” said John, and, when Annabel stuck out her hand, he shook it formally. 

“You don’t live here,” announced Annabel.

“No,” said John. “Just visiting.”

“Lucky you were here to save Spot,” said Annabel. 

“Is that his name?”

“’Course.”

John decided not to point out that the dog didn’t have any spots. 

“Anyway,” continued Annabel, “I’ve got to get home before Mum finds out Spot ran away again.” 

John helped Annabel clip a leash onto Spot’s collar, and then regarded her. “You’ll be okay with him?” The dog seemed big for Annabel to handle. 

She looked hotly offended. “ _Yes_ ,” she said. “Come on, Spot.” She tugged the dog with her, and they went trotting off. As an afterthought, Annabel called over her shoulder at him, “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” John called back, standing and watching their progress. Spot seemed much better behaved then he had been, keeping careful pace with Annabel’s small strides. 

“You’ve saved the day,” said a voice behind him, and John turned in surprise. Sherlock was standing there, nestled in his dramatic coat, with his scarf knotted tightly around his neck. His color was high from being out in the cold, and his eyes seemed to be reflecting back the sparkle of the sunny frost around them. 

“Oh,” said John, shrugging a bit. “Not really. Do you know her?”

Sherlock looked uninterested. “Probably.” His eyes were sharp on John.

“What?” asked John, self-consciously. 

“Nothing. Shall we go back to the house? I could do with a cuppa.”

“A cuppa sounds lovely,” John agreed, because it did. It was cold and sharp outside, and John was looking forward to the thawing of a hot cup of tea. Maybe they could even sit by the fire. John wondered when he had started craving the world’s most traditional Christmas. “How are your experiments?” John asked, as they started walking across the garden toward the house. 

“Progressing.”

“When will they be done?”

“Complicated question,” said Sherlock. “What did my mother say to you?”

_That you need to be loved. Too bad she doesn’t know that I’m not fulfilling that task for her._ “She said you were out checking on your experiments as if I ought to know that you would have experiments to check on.”

“I’m a scientist,” Sherlock pointed out. “Of course I have experiments.”

“I didn’t know you were a scientist,” said John. “You told me you were a consulting detective.”

“What do you think it _means_ to be a consulting detective?” asked Sherlock, sounding exasperated. 

John shook his head a bit and decided it wasn’t worth the disagreement. Besides, they had reached the house, and John was thinking ahead to that delicious cup of tea he’d been imagining, to the crackle of the fire in the fireplace. 

The heat in the house blasted them with warmth as soon as they entered, and John sighed in contentment. 

Sherlock was stripping off his gloves. “Harrison?” he called, and Harrison appeared. 

John decided it was possible Harrison might be magical. 

“Can you make Dr. Watson a cup of tea?” requested Sherlock. “Is there a fire lit in the library?”

“Yes,” Harrison confirmed. 

“Excellent. Dr. Watson will take his tea there. Also, send someone to fetch Dr. Watson’s cane for him. He left it out in the garden, on the bench by the elms.”

John stood stock-still, watching as Sherlock strode confidently away from him and up the staircase, and realized that yes, he didn’t have his cane anymore. 

***

John finished tying his tie and stepped out from the en-suite and into the bedroom. Sherlock was sitting in the middle of an enormous mess that consisted at least partly of floorboards he’d torn up. John had spent the afternoon lounging in the library, happily buried in a surprisingly interesting book on the Reformation, and, when he had finally come back up to the bedroom, he had found it like this. Sherlock had refused both lunch and dinner, and John had eaten two awkward meals with Mycroft and Violet, neither of whom seemed surprised that Sherlock basically didn’t eat. No wonder Sherlock hadn’t had a favorite food when asked. 

John stood watching him for a moment, trying to determine how to broach the subject. Sherlock looked pleasantly lost in whatever he was doing, but he surprised John by saying, “Where are you going?”

So he _had_ noticed John carefully getting dressed. “I’m going to Christmas Eve services,” John ventured. 

That got Sherlock’s attention. He looked up, taking in what John was wearing. And then he said, incredulously, “Are you religious?”

“I’m…It’s Christmas,” said John, helplessly. 

Sherlock looked unimpressed. But then, John understood, because no one in the Holmes household seemed at all inclined to go to any sort of religious services for the holiday. 

John licked his lips and settled comfortably into a military stance, hand tight around his cane, because his limp had come back that afternoon. He said, slowly, looking anywhere but at Sherlock, “When I was shot, all I could think was, _Please, God, let me live_.” John took a deep breath and pushed down every other memory about that moment, because he didn’t want to dwell on it, not tonight of all nights. “And here I am,” he finished. “So, I don’t know, for all I know, there isn’t a God, and I’m being ridiculous, but if there _is_ one, it’s Christmas Eve, and I don’t want to look ungrateful for the fact that I’m still alive. So I’m going to go to a service.”

There was a long moment of silence. John waited for whatever it was Sherlock was going to say. 

Sherlock said, “I’ll go with you.”

John blinked as Sherlock leaped lightly to his feet and tugged his suit back into place. Who wore a suit to sit on the floor sifting through dusty samples of who knew what? Sherlock, John supposed. 

“Really?” said John, unable to conceal his surprise. 

“Yes,” replied Sherlock, unconcerned, reaching for his coat. 

John considered. He could tell Sherlock not to come, and Sherlock would probably listen, but he found it didn’t bother him for Sherlock to tag along. It might actually be nice to have company, John decided. So he pulled his own coat on and they headed down together. 

Violet was sitting in the drawing room she’d been in the night before and looked up at them when they walked in. Mycroft was nowhere to be seen, but he seemed to vanish for long periods of time. The Holmeses did not seem big on togetherness, John had concluded. They occupied the same house and intersected only for the briefest moments. It made it much easier to hide a fake relationship, frankly. 

“Are you going out?” Violet asked. 

“Services,” answered Sherlock, shortly, turning his coat collar up. 

“Really?” Violet sounded shocked. 

“John wishes to go,” replied Sherlock, “so we are going.”

Violet looked at John, and John tried not to be self-conscious about all this. Then Violet stood and said, “I’ll come along, too.”

And that was how John Watson found himself at Christmas Eve services with Sherlock and Violet Holmes. Sherlock was very still beside him through the service, listening with an intensity that no one else in the church was matching, and John wondered what was going on in his head. Clearly, Sherlock was not the sort to spend time in church. John wondered if this was all an interesting sociological specimen to him. 

To John, it was a memory from his long lost childhood. He hadn’t been to church in well over a decade, but he suddenly _remembered_ all of it, vividly. He hadn’t thought about God until he’d been lying in the desert, sure that he was feeling his life leak out of him, and then he had begged and pleaded with an entity he would have told you he didn’t believe in if you’d asked him only minutes before. He had woken up in a hospital room, broken in more ways than he had realized at the time, but _alive_. And maybe he had no career anymore, no real _life_ anymore, maybe he’d completely lost all sense of his identity, of who John Watson had been and who he might be now, but he was still breathing and his heart was still beating and there was still time left to him to straighten it all out and if God had had a hand in it, then John needed to thank Him. 

John squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of the choking dust of Afghanistan, of sucking it into his lungs when he thought they would be the last gulps of oxygen he would ever have, of pain and panic and crippling fear, of feeling like he still hadn’t managed to shake the vestiges off of him, and that was why he was being paid to pretend to be somebody’s boyfriend. Him. Doctor John H. Watson, who had been a brilliant, highly-praised surgeon, with a bright future in front of him, and now was…was… _no one_. A blank cipher to fulfill any role pressed to him: Christmas elf, fake boyfriend. He had been _someone_ , and then he had volunteered for war and crawled into battle and he had lain with his face in desert sand, clawing for life and consciousness through the haze of swimming pain—

John didn’t even realize how close he was to hyperventilating until Sherlock’s fingers brushed over his white knuckles, where he had his hand digging around the pew they were sitting on. It was a hesitant brush but it was enough to ground him, bring him out of Afghanistan and back into the church. John opened his eyes with a sudden gasp, almost shocked not to find himself squinting into the bright dazzle of desert sunlight but instead looking at the dim, candle-lit church interior. Sound rushed in, not the rat-a-tat bullets of the war he’d left behind but the murmur of prayer, and the smell around him was not the acrid smell of gunsmoke but was incense. John concentrated on deep, even breaths, and Sherlock kept his fingers resting against his hand until well after John’s heart rate had slowed. 

***

When the service was over, John felt a bit uncomfortable, embarrassed for the closeness of the panic attack that Sherlock had managed to stave off, and he wanted to delay going home, so he turned to Sherlock and said, “Do you mind if I take a moment with the candles?”

Sherlock shook his head, and John felt him watching him as he limped toward the candles and lit one. He wasn’t used to praying, so he just thought, _Thanks for listening_ , and hoped that would be good enough. 

And then Annabel said, excitedly, “John!”

John turned to her and smiled. She was decked out in a princess-y red dress and a dramatic floppy hair bow and she looked as pent-up with anticipation as children usually did on Christmas Eve. “Hello. You and Spot get home okay?”

Annabel nodded, and said to the man who came up behind her, “This is John. He caught Spot for me today.”

“Oh, did you?” said the man, smiling and shaking John’s hand. “Well, thanks for that. Keeping track of Spot is a full-time job, really.”

“I was happy to help,” John said. 

“Are you new in town?” asked the man, who was clearly Annabel’s father. 

“Visiting the Holmeses for Christmas,” John replied. 

The man looked absolutely shocked. “Really?” he said, as if John had announced he could fly. 

John said, slowly, “Yes.”

“Are you a _friend_?” The man still sounded disbelieving. 

John figured he was being paid to say, “Boyfriend, actually.”

John thought the man’s eyes were going to pop out of his head. “ _Boyfriend_? Of _who_?”

“Sherlock,” answered John. 

“ _Sherlock_? But Sherlock doesn’t even have friends, never mind…” The man trailed off, looking John up and down, as if he doubted the veracity of what John was saying. 

And he _should_ be, because John wasn’t telling the truth, but still, John felt it was somehow dreadfully unfair of this man to suggest that it was this shocking that Sherlock would bring home a boyfriend. Sherlock was odd, yes, but he was clever and interesting and very nice to look at. “He’s got me,” John said, shortly. “Merry Christmas.” He forced himself to smile briefly at Annabel before turning on his heel and marching out of the church, finding Sherlock standing on the steps, clearly waiting for him. 

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow when John walked up to him. “Something wrong?”

“Thank you,” said John, firmly. 

Sherlock blinked. “For what?”

“That. In there. With the…” John gestured. “You know.”

“Ah,” said Sherlock. “I recognize the signs of a panic attack.”

“Yes. Well. Thank you. Where’s your mother? Already in the car?”

“Yes. John. What happened in the church?” Sherlock sounded dreadfully curious. 

“Nothing. Why?”

“Because you’re not using your cane again,” Sherlock pointed out, mildly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to dashcommaslash, who poked through some of this for me!

John should have expected the nightmare that came that night. It had been a long time since he’d had a panic attack like the one Sherlock had narrowly prevented in the church, so it made sense that everything had been dredged up and was at the forefront of his subconscious, just waiting for his conscious mind to relax enough to put him right back in Afghanistan, drowning in bloody sand. 

What he would never have expected was to wake to Sherlock crouched in front of him, peering at him closely. He was carefully not touching John, but he said his name—“John”—and John realized that Sherlock had _been_ saying his name, that that repetition had pulled him from the nightmare. 

Seeing that he was awake, Sherlock said, “Take a deep breath. You need to shut off your fight-or-flight response.”

This was ridiculous. John knew that. He squeezed his eyes shut and took the deep, slow breaths he knew would tamp down the flow of adrenaline through him. He was drenched in sweat and shivering uncontrollably, and he wished Sherlock would go away. 

“Open your eyes,” Sherlock said, a little harshly, and John didn’t know why he obeyed, only that he did, and then the lights were thrown on, and he found himself blinking against the brightness. 

“Up,” Sherlock said, throwing the covers off of him. 

John looked at him, wide-eyed and disoriented. “What?”

“Get up.” Sherlock reached for him and pulled him out of bed but it was somehow gentle. 

John didn’t feel quite capable of resisting. He said, “Where are we going?”

“Downstairs. Come on.” 

John let Sherlock lead him downstairs and then outside, where John hissed in reaction to the shocking cold. 

Sherlock stood out there with him, close enough that John could sense his radiating warmth in the sharp cold of the middle of the night. “How cold is it?” Sherlock asked him. 

John gave him a withering glare. “It’s freezing. Sherlock, what—”

“Good,” Sherlock interrupted him. “It’s freezing. Focus on that. Because you are _here_. You are not in a desert getting shot at, do you understand? You are here, and you are safe.” 

John stared up at him, at the pale glitter of his eyes catching the starlight, and could not look away. Sherlock was right, he was _here_ , this was more real than the dream, he was here, with Sherlock, that was reality, he had to cling to it. 

“Keep breathing,” said Sherlock. 

John breathed and realized that even though he was standing outside, barely dressed, in the freezing cold, he’d stopped shivering. 

Sherlock reached out and placed his hand against John’s neck. Sherlock’s hand was cold, and John flinched but stayed still, recognizing that Sherlock was taking his pulse. 

“Better?” he asked. 

“Good,” Sherlock confirmed, and dropped his hand. “We can go back inside now.”

John trailed behind Sherlock, back up the stairs, feeling incredibly drained and exhausted now that the adrenaline had left his system. He collapsed into the bed, burrowing into it, and then wrinkled his nose, because the sheets were clammy and damp and it seemed like so much effort to change them. 

“Here,” said Sherlock, and John looked at him blearily and realized he’d got a glass of water. He took it and sipped at it because he didn’t know what else to do. “And get out of that bed. We’ll change the sheets in the morning. For now, sleep on top of the duvet and I’ll fetch you an extra blanket.”

Sherlock disappeared from the room, and John did as Sherlock had said because it was a relief not to have to solve these problems for himself. It was actually nice to have Sherlock there, not to be alone. John knew that had Sherlock not been there, he would still be curled in his bed doing deep breathing exercises and trying to get the scent of gunpowder to leave his nose. Actually, had Sherlock not been there, he’d probably still be caught in the nightmare. 

John was already half-asleep when Sherlock returned with a blanket that he threw over him, and John said, sleepily, “You could come to bed if you want,” because he felt bad about throwing Sherlock out after Sherlock had been so lovely, and anyway he was in no fit state to do any ravishing, so he trusted himself not to cause a completely awkward situation. 

Sherlock hesitated and then said, “Would that help? Having someone else in the bed?”

John made a noncommittal noise into his pillow and settled more deeply under the blanket Sherlock had brought and chased dreams of dark curls and silver eyes and bullets that couldn’t come near him because he was shielded by a heavy, dramatic coat. 

***

When John woke on Christmas morning, Sherlock was curled on his side of the bed, next to John but not touching him, sound asleep. For a moment John was surprised, and then he remembered the events of the night before and felt less surprised and more embarrassed. What must Sherlock think about all that? 

John watched Sherlock sleeping for a little while, trying to make up his mind what Sherlock might say and what John might say in response, and then decided it would be safer to retreat to the shower. 

When he got out of the shower, Sherlock was still sleeping. John hesitated, wondering if he should wake him, as it _was_ Christmas morning, but Sherlock looked deeply asleep and peaceful in a way he never seemed to be when he was awake, so John just pulled the blanket up over him a bit more and left him to go downstairs. 

He found Violet and Mycroft in the dining room, both drinking either tea or coffee. Mycroft was buried in newspapers and barely looked up at him as he came in. 

“Merry Christmas, John,” said Violet, standing and greeting him warmly and kissing his cheek. 

“Merry Christmas,” he replied. 

“Where’s Sherlock?”

“Sleeping,” he answered. 

Violet blinked in surprise, and even Mycroft looked up from his newspapers. “Sleeping?” she said. “Really?”

“I know, I’m just as surprised as you,” John assured her. “But yes. Sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I thought we could have breakfast and then wait for him to wake before opening the presents.”

“Of course,” Violet agreed. “Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, please,” said John, feeling like he needed to be less bleary-eyed than he was. 

“I heard that you are introducing religion to the household,” remarked Mycroft, as John sat. 

“No one had to come,” John began, annoyed Mycroft had brought it up that way. 

“It was lovely,” interjected Violet. “A very peaceful way to spend the evening. And Sherlock quite enjoyed it.”

“Do you think so?” asked John, curiously. 

“Didn’t you? I thought he was very sweet, actually.”

Mycroft made a dubious face and retreated back into his newspapers, and John drank his coffee and nibbled at some toast and wondered how late he should let it get before waking Sherlock. Luckily, Sherlock appeared before they had quite finished breakfast, looking the better for having slept, and greetings were exchanged and Sherlock turned down breakfast the way he usually did. In short, Sherlock was behaving completely normally, and John felt as if maybe he wasn’t even going to bring up the nightmare. 

“Don’t you think you should eat _something_?” John ventured. 

Sherlock frowned, then nabbed a piece of toast and took a large bite for John’s benefit. 

“Thank you,” said John, for much more than just the piece of toast. 

Sherlock seemed to understand what the _thank you_ was for, sent him a small but genuine smile. 

“Let’s open presents,” said Violet, looking pleased as punch that Sherlock was actually consenting to eat something. 

John had not brought any presents. He had supposed that Sherlock would take care of that, and he was relieved to find that Sherlock had supplied presents for his mother and Mycroft that were marked as being from the two of them. John hadn’t even thought about the fact that he probably should have got a present for Sherlock. Luckily, Sherlock opened a gaily wrapped present marked _To Sherlock, From John_ , and revealed a really very lovely and expensive microscope. 

“Oh, excellent, just what I wanted, you shouldn’t have,” said Sherlock, practically caressing the box. 

John tried not to be openly amused at the act. “The least I could do,” he replied. 

“And this is for you,” Sherlock continued, putting a large, light box in John’s lap. 

John hesitated just a second, as they hadn’t discussed Christmas presents and he hadn’t given much thought to what Sherlock might have got him. He hoped it wasn’t going to be something over-the-top and outrageous. 

It was a jumper. Dark blue, with a subtle pattern of gray and cream woven into it. John was relieved to be given such an eminently practical gift and lifted it out of the box, the better to admire it. Which was when he realized that there was something else in the box. Something that looked suspiciously like a doctor’s lab coat. 

John set aside the jumper and reached for the lab coat. _John H. Watson, M.D._ was embroidered on it, and John, for one startlingly vivid moment, was once again John H. Watson, M.D., could remember pulling a lab coat just like this one on, meeting with patients, living his life, and he was no longer a doctor, and it was no longer his life, and he should have been furious at Sherlock for buying him this present when he _knew_ John was no longer a doctor but he really couldn’t feel anything but the lump of nostalgia in his throat. 

“Oh, lovely,” said Sherlock’s mother, looking over at the gift. “What does the ‘H’ stand for, John?”

“Hamish,” answered John, automatically, still feeling dazed, still feeling absolutely _lost_. But then he looked at Sherlock, whose gaze, unusual as it was, was steady and reassuring and _comforting_. And John no longer felt lost. “Thank you,” he said, because he didn’t know what else he could say. 

Sherlock smiled, small and uncertain and painfully genuine. “Merry Christmas, Dr. Watson,” he replied, and then turned to another present, as if the moment was over and gone, whereas John was still clutching a lab coat to his chest like an idiot. 

***

Dinner was a delicious goose. Sherlock mostly sat silently, pushing food around on his plate. Mycroft ate heartily and single-mindedly. John made polite small talk with Violet and thought that Violet must be terribly relieved to have a normal person at the table.

After dinner, they adjourned to the drawing room for mulled wine, and John admired the Christmas tree for a little while and wondered if he should suggest they watch _Doctor Who_. Although, considering they hadn’t even pulled any crackers, he didn’t think _Doctor Who_ was a likely favorite of the Holmeses; their Christmas did not seem the least bit whimsical. Eventually John let his nagging thoughts get the best of him and slipped out and phoned Harry. Harry didn’t answer. John left her a hesitant message wishing her a merry Christmas. 

When he got back to the drawing room, Sherlock was playing the violin. John hadn’t known Sherlock could play the violin, and the sight and sound of it caught him off-guard. John stood a bit off to himself in the drawing room. Mycroft had vanished, and Violet was sitting by the fire watching Sherlock approvingly. Sherlock played with intense concentration, no thought for anything or anyone else, and the music he was coaxing from the instrument was astonishingly beautiful. John stood, frozen, his hand tight around the mulled wine he was holding, thinking of being caught in Sherlock’s gaze while opening the presents, of clinging to Sherlock’s gaze in the cold of the dark Christmas morning, with gunshots still echoing in his slumbering subconscious. Sherlock’s gaze, his single-minded focus, was heady. Watching it now, in action on the violin, was almost dizzying. 

When Sherlock finished the song, his mother burst into a little round of applause, and Sherlock gave a tongue-in-cheek bow, nevertheless looking pleased. 

Mycroft swept through the drawing room doorway and gave John an odd look, and John wondered if he looked utterly besotted. _Was_ he utterly besotted?

“Dr. Watson is standing under the mistletoe,” Mycroft announced, as he settled onto the sofa. “I believe that is your job, Sherlock.”

John looked up in alarm. Yes, there over his head was a sprig of mistletoe. How could he not have noticed that?

Sherlock, looking unconcerned, was walking over to him, and panic bloomed in John’s chest, and he thought to himself, _Oh, my God, you are utterly besotted with him_ , and then, _When did that happen?_ and then, _When did you let that happen?_ and then Sherlock was there, right next to him, and he leaned over and brushed his lips over John’s, carelessly, as if they did this all the time. John suppressed the urge to squeeze his eyes shut in reaction. He kept his eyes wide open, holding Sherlock’s gaze, and John amended his previous thought. Being the center of Sherlock’s attention wasn’t heady, it was _addictive_ , and John was already a goner. 

The kiss was over before it began. It wasn’t even really a _kiss_. Sherlock straightened and walked away and resumed playing the violin, by the fire, and suddenly everything about the room was too hot and too close. John didn’t care that he was sure that it looked like he was fleeing: he fled. He stepped out the front door, desperate for a bracing gulp of cold air. He paused in surprise, though, as the door clicked shut behind him, because it was snowing, flakes like delicate diamonds dancing through the air all around him. Christmas snow. It was like being in a storybook. A crazy storybook where he was dating the prince but the clock was about to strike midnight. 

The door opened behind him, and Sherlock said, sounded as surprised as John had felt, “It’s snowing.”

“Yes,” John said, and wished that Sherlock didn’t shut the door and come to stand beside him so they could watch the romantic snow fall together. But that was what Sherlock did. 

The silence between them was awkward and uncomfortable and John suppressed the urge to fidget. He recognized that this was unusual; normally silences with Sherlock were completely natural, so natural John barely registered them. 

Sherlock cleared his throat eventually and said, “I’m sure your sister is simply busy with Christmas Day festivities. Nobody ever answers their phones on Christmas Day. It’s annoying.”

John didn’t ask how Sherlock had known not only that he’d rung his sister but that she hadn’t answered. He just stood in the silent snow and refused to look up at him, because if he did he would be caught in Sherlock’s dangerous gaze. Instead, John spoke, because he couldn’t bear the heavy silence all around them, somehow magnified by the muffling snow. “When I was a boy, it always seemed as if Christmas would never come. And now, I feel like I blink and it’s another Christmas gone by.” _Great_ , John told himself. _What a depressing thing to say._

Sherlock said, “I have never understood the point of Christmas.”

“The historical point, the spiritual point, the religious point, the economic point…?” John prompted, and Sherlock laughed, and John went fluttery with pride over having made him laughed and cursed himself a thousand times over for getting himself in this impossible situation. 

“The personal point,” said Sherlock. “I never understood the personal point. A mid-winter celebration had value to primitive peoples, who needed an uplifting of spirit in the middle of all the harshness, but now it is merely a meaningless swindle being perpetrated on the public by retail shops.”

John opened his mouth to protest that, but Sherlock continued. 

“Then you went to church last night and I realized that, somehow, there are people who still need that mid-winter lift of spirits. An excuse, however flimsy, for celebration.” Sherlock sounded awed, like that had never occurred to him before. 

John looked at the snow. He said, “The winter is still long and dark. Joy, in any form, is always appreciated.”

Sherlock said nothing in reply, but the silence that settled around them was somehow more comfortable than it had been. The cold was growing unbearable without coats, but John couldn’t bring himself to go inside and break the spell. 

“Sorry about the kiss in there,” Sherlock said, suddenly, hurriedly. 

“Don’t apologize. I remember that you’re paying me to play a role for you here.” It had been possibly the most ill-advised decision of his life, taking this role, but he was bound and determined to see it through. 

“I think it’s going well. Don’t you? Do you think they believe it?” Sherlock asked the question almost anxiously. 

John looked at him, surprised out of his resolution not to, and Sherlock was frowning down at him, teeth worrying at his lush lower lip, eyes gray in the snowlight and worried. Snow was clinging to his dark curls, settled in his collar. John held tighter to the rapidly cooling glass of mulled wine in his hand and said, “They’re your family. Can’t you tell?”

“No. I read them less well than everyone else. Have they said anything to you?”

“Not a word that would make me think they’re suspicious.”

Sherlock nodded, then said, formally, as if they were business partners, “Thank you for this. You’ve been lovely so far.”

John supposed they _were_ business partners. So he said, as jovially as he could manage, “All in a day’s work.” And then, because he couldn’t stand out here staring at Sherlock much longer without taking the one step forward that would allow him to press his face against the invitation of his shoulder, “Now let’s go back inside. I won’t have you catch cold for the two weeks I’m dating you so that I have to spend the remainder of this trip playing the good boyfriend and taking care of you.”

Sherlock, looking very thoughtful, nodded carefully, as if this were a very serious thing to be agreeing to, and then followed John back inside. 

***

Sherlock sat on the roof, which was very cold and very wet, and thought to himself that he had made an uncharacteristic miscalculation. And he needed to fix it. But he didn’t know how. 

Which was why he was on the roof. He had been coming to the roof since he had discovered that he could clamber out onto it from one of the dormer windows in the old servants’ quarters. A discovery he had made at the age of five. It had provoked the sacking of a nanny, his discovery of his roof perch. A success, because Sherlock hadn’t cared for that nanny. But he did like the roof very much, and he had been retreating to it ever since. At first, his parents would try to dissuade him, but eventually, when they realized he had no intention of throwing himself off of it and was clever enough not to slip off of it, they had relented and let him do as he pleased. His parents had always been quite good about letting him do as he pleased. His mother had been even better about it after his father had died. Sherlock had refused to go to the funeral. He had spent the day on the roof. It had been blazing hot that day, and Sherlock spent the entire day crying. He remembered it vividly. It had been the last time he’d ever cried, and he had also got blisteringly sunburnt and had been unable to really move for days afterward. 

The whole disaster with his mother’s insistence that he find himself a steady, dependable boyfriend had, in Sherlock’s initial view, come out of nowhere, although, upon consideration afterward, he should have seen the seeds of it being sown. His mother was not getting any younger, and his mother had always harbored a belief in her heart that he needed Taking Care Of. He blamed this on being the younger son. There were many advantages to being the baby of the family—advantages he ruthlessly exploited—but this overprotectiveness was not one of them. Mycroft could take care of him, Sherlock had argued. God knew Mycroft did enough bloody interfering in his life. Mycroft would take care of him whether anyone in the universe wished him to or not. But his mother had said that, no, Sherlock needed to find someone to love, someone who would love him back. Sherlock, his mother said, had such an enormous capacity to love, and he was wasting it on crime scenes and dead people, when he needed a live person who would appreciate what a gem he was. 

His mother talked that way about him. It was embarrassing. He wasn’t sure if she’d mentioned anything like that to John, and he hoped not, because then Sherlock would have to die of humiliation over the whole thing. His mother was nonsensical when it came to him; his mother could not be made to see reason. Sherlock had had boyfriends before, mostly in the drug-addled rebellion of his younger twenties. To Sherlock, sex was all wrapped up in cocaine, in being able to forget that, really, the person shagging you not only didn’t think you were a gem but was more inclined to think you were a freak when he wasn’t high. But if you closed your eyes and were high yourself, then the bruising hands on your hips and threatening nip of teeth low on your abdomen made your blood thrum loud enough to sing, loud enough to drown out all the other sensory input. And if he was gone in the morning, so much the better, because if he was still there, then there had to being an exhausting search for more cocaine to make it all bearable again. Mycroft and his mother had never met any of these boyfriends, as Sherlock considered anyone who lasted more than one night. Just as Mycroft and his mother had never understood that cocaine brought him no pleasure, just relief. Which was different from pleasure. 

Which was different from joy. Which was what John Watson had said to him that night, about joy, in any form, being appreciated. Which was what his mother had said to him the Christmas before. _You need someone who will bring you joy, Sherlock. You’ve been searching all your life and never found it._ Odd that John should use the same word that night. _Joy._ So many things about John Watson were so very odd. Like the fact that Sherlock had asked him to do this at all. He had not realized his mother was serious about the threat to set him up until she had brought it up again, unexpectedly, and then, the following day, he had met John, and Sherlock did not believe in signs unless it was convenient for him to do so, and it had been convenient then: John Watson, an army doctor working as a Christmas elf, with a psychosomatic limp and enough steel underneath the inviting exterior that Sherlock had thought, _I could work with him. Mother might almost believe that he’d keep my interest._

And so here Sherlock was, with a fake boyfriend sleeping in his bed, and it occurred to him that he had never before truly understood what a boyfriend was. They had not shared a single orgasm, and yet Sherlock felt inexplicably connected to him. He was aware of wherever John was in a room, whatever John was doing, even when he didn’t _want_ to be. Even when he told himself that he didn’t matter, there were more interesting things to notice and be noticed, it was John who drummed away in his brain, unrelenting, and _Sherlock didn’t mind_. When he had brushed his fingertips against John’s hand at church, and John had not moved away, had not flinched, had _thanked_ him for it later… Sherlock tried to recall if he had ever before touched another person in so non-sexual a manner. When he had woken John from his nightmare and pulled him outside, desperate to get John out of the horrors of his imaginations and back into the comfort of the real world around him, and John had looked up at him with wide, terrified, wondering eyes, gulping at air and so focused on him that Sherlock hadn’t dared to look away for fear John would tumble off the ledge he was balancing on, drown right there in front of him… Sherlock had wanted to touch again, wanted to pull John in, tight up against him, give him his warmth and the steadiness of his breaths and the safety of his beating heart, and he hadn’t only by the most enormous exercise of will Sherlock had ever forced himself to display. Because Sherlock was not used to denying himself something that he wanted, Sherlock got _everything_ he wanted. 

And, at some point in the past few days, Sherlock had decided that he wanted John Watson. Not for a shag. He didn’t want his hands and lips and tongue and cock. Although that would all be lovely, too. No, he wanted him to be a “boyfriend” in this odd sense that they were playing at now. He wanted it all to be real. He wanted to be able to hold his hand and not have it be remarkable or strange. He wanted to be able to look at John until he was sick of looking at him (which would probably be never). He wanted to be able to kiss John whenever he was standing under mistletoe. And whenever he wasn’t standing under mistletoe, too. 

Sherlock closed his eyes and took a deep drag on his cigarette and thought of kissing John under the mistletoe, that electric buzz of his lips, however briefly, over John’s, of the promise of everything beyond that: teeth and tongue and mouth and chest and nipples and ribcage and navel… In the flash of that half-second when his lips had been against John’s, Sherlock’s vivid imagination had given him a million fantasies to execute with the data he’d gathered about John’s mouth. Too many to handle. When John had fled from the room immediately afterward, Sherlock had followed because he couldn’t _not_. He needed to be near him, needed to breathe him in, needed to hear him and see him. 

Sherlock flicked the end of his cigarette off the roof, into the newly fallen crusting of snow down below, and considered the things that a conventional boyfriend might do. John might be playing a part, but, Sherlock was determined, from this point on, _he_ was going to be deadly serious.


	5. Chapter 5

John awoke to an empty bedroom and a sparkling snow world. He took a shower and dressed in the new jumper Sherlock had bought him and went downstairs. He found Sherlock’s mother in the room he’d found her in the other morning, and this time there was already a cup of coffee waiting for him.

John picked it up and breathed the steam from the coffee in and said, smiling, “Thank you.”

“Not at all. I trust you had a nice holiday yesterday?”

“Yes,” John answered, taking a seat. “Everything was gorgeous.”

“I meant to ask—and I hope you don’t think I’m prying—but have you family of your own?”

John thought this was a natural question, and he was annoyed that his answer was more complicated than it should have been. “My parents both died while I was in medical school.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Violet.

John shrugged, because it was what it was. He would have preferred to have them still around, but he had mourned them and moved on. “I have an older sister, but she and I are not…getting along…at the moment.”

Violet frowned at him now. “That’s a pity. Christmas is a time for all grudges to be put aside. I have had many Christmases when my boys refused to exchange a single word, but I made them sit at the same table, by God.”

John overlooked the mild criticism and smiled. As far as he could see, Mycroft and Sherlock barely exchanged a single word under the best of circumstances. “I cannot imagine that they were easy children to raise.”

“Mycroft was very straightforward. He has a desire to please that made him quite an ideal child. Sherlock made up for Mycroft by causing far more trouble than two boys combined. But I love them both, for the very different people they are, even though each would tell you that the other is my favorite.”

“My sister and I used to have the same disagreement about my mother,” remarked John. 

Violet smiled a little bit in response, but she seemed absent-minded. She looked out the window distractedly and then said, abruptly, “Their father died when Sherlock was thirteen. It was a week after we had sent him away to school. I don’t think he ever forgave either one of us.”

John paused. “For sending him to school?”

Violet turned to look at John evenly. “No. For one of us having had the bad manners to die, and the other of us having had the bad manners to bury the dead one.” 

John said, thinking that it probably didn’t sound suspicious, “He’s never talked to me about it.”

Violet’s eyebrows lifted mildly. “He’s never talked to you about any of us, be honest.”

John hesitated. He looked down at his cup of coffee. He thought about Sherlock, who seemed confused by conversation about the most mundane of topics, never mind _serious_ topics. Sherlock did not seem like the type who would share much; he seemed like the type who could remain an enigma, even after years of knowing him, if you didn’t work very hard at it. He looked back at Violet and said, “He doesn’t talk about anything that’s important to him.”

Violet smiled at him with sudden, blinding warmth. “Ah,” she said. “You’ve discovered that, have you? I take it that’s why he never mentioned you until showing up on our doorstep with you.” Violet sipped her drink. 

John wished that were true. It was a pretty conclusion for Violet to draw. He couldn’t, of course, say, _No, he never mentioned me because we’re not actually dating._ So he said instead, “Are there Boxing Day plans?”

“No. Mycroft is working, of course—Mycroft is always working, he takes after his father—and Sherlock is in the kitchen working his way through some sort of conundrum by eating an entire box of chocolate digestives.”

“Well,” John considered, “I suppose it’s better than no breakfast at all.”

“Or a breakfast that is entirely coffee,” rejoined Violet, pointedly, looking at John’s mug. 

“Breakfast has frequently been a luxury in my chosen lifestyles,” John told her. “Old habits die hard.”

“There you are,” Sherlock said from the doorway, as if John had been playing hide-and-go-seek with him and chosen a particular troublesome hiding place.

“Here I am. In your house. Exactly where you might expect me to be,” John pointed out, good-naturedly. 

Sherlock didn’t even seem to hear him. He was fussing with his coat and scarf and gloves as if concerned they didn’t look dramatic enough. (They did.) “I thought you might like to come along,” Sherlock said. 

“Come along where?” John asked, surprised. 

“Across the wilderness.”

“The wilderness?” echoed John. 

Sherlock frowned. “Yes, John, the fake forest. Don’t you know your landscaping vocabulary?”

“No, must have forgotten to learn that while I was busy trying to memorize human anatomy.”

“Would you like to come along?” Sherlock asked again, even though he now looked furious at John’s lack of knowledge of obscure landscaping terms. 

“Sure,” said John, bland and agreeable, because he wasn’t going to be drawn into Sherlock’s thunderous mood. 

“Excellent,” proclaimed Sherlock. “Fetch your coat.” Sherlock disappeared from the doorway and headed down the hall. 

“This must be Sherlock’s idea of a romantic stroll,” remarked Violet. 

***

Sherlock was waiting for him outside, stomping up and down the hard ground. The snow had been so intermingled with the dirt that it could no longer be called snow. 

Sherlock stilled upon spotting him, waited very patiently for him to approach, and then said, politely and almost shyly, “I thought you might like to see my experiments.”

There was something about the way he said it that made John think of a fragile layer of ice over a deep pond. If John answered incorrectly, took a wrong step, he’d go plunging through into the icy water below. John looked at Sherlock, in his coat and scarf, dramatically dark against the white snowscape, dangerously attractive. “Yes,” he said. “I’d love to see your experiments.” 

And off they went, tramping over the thin layer of snow on the ground. Sherlock was intensely quiet. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, and his shoes—he was still wearing a suit, of course he was—crunched loudly on the snow. John limped beside him and noticed that Sherlock subtly adjusted his gait to match John’s. John did not have to over-exert himself to keep up. 

“The house has been in the family since 1887,” Sherlock announced abruptly, “but the landscape predates that. The official histories will tell you it was designed by a landscape architect named Cecil Fawkes, but it was, in reality, designed by a woman named Annabeth Hudson, who found it wisest to operate her business under a man’s name.” 

“Oh,” said John faintly, unsure what the benefit of this lecture was supposed to be. 

But Sherlock was off and running now. John received a primer on the history of landscape architecture and wondered vaguely if he should expect some sort of quiz later. 

“That’s the simplest of explanations,” Sherlock finished, “but you follow the idea.”

“I had no idea you liked landscape architecture so much.”

“I don’t,” replied Sherlock briskly. “I learned for you. So we would have something to talk about whilst we walked.” 

John looked at him in surprise. Sherlock didn’t break stride and didn’t stop studying the path ahead of them. “There wasn’t any need.”

“You said we didn’t have anything that overlapped,” Sherlock reminded him. 

John thought back to the initial drive. “I said we had tea.”

Sherlock finally stopped walking, looking at him with a hint of a smile around his mouth that John wanted to kiss off of him. “I should learn as much as I can about tea for next time.”

“I don’t care what you know about tea, so long as you can bloody make it.”

“Hmm,” said Sherlock, as if that statement merited serious consideration. 

John looked away from him before he could give in and really start kissing him. “Where are we?” he asked. “One of your experiments?”

“Yes. One of them. Actually, all of the trees around you are an experiment. I’ve been injecting different chemicals into their barks since I was a boy and studying the effects.”

“Really?” said John, looking around them. “How do you remember which tree got which chemical?”

“I have a mind palace.”

“A mind palace,” echoed John. “Of course you do. Are any of them radioactive?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sherlock. 

“Ah, yes, _that’s_ the point where the ‘ridiculous’ line is,” said John, and laid a hand on the nearest tree trunk. It felt just like a regular tree. He wondered if he’d been expecting it to grow warm, or glow. 

“But actually,” said Sherlock, “that’s not what I wanted to show you. This way. He should be around here somewhere.” Sherlock kept walking, peering up into the tree branches. “Ah. There he is.” Sherlock pointed triumphantly. 

There was a good-sized bird perched in one of the trees, and John peered at it and said, trying to dredge up his very limited knowledge of birds, “Pheasant?”

“Partridge,” Sherlock corrected. “That is Perdy. Short for Perdicinae. Which is cheating, since that’s just his subfamily.”

John didn’t really know what Sherlock was on about. He read between the lines and concluded, “He’s a pet?” 

Sherlock looked confused by the very idea. “No. He’s an experiment. I found him on the grounds as a chick five years ago. Something clearly killed his mother and the other chicks, but Perdy managed to survive. It was another deadly dull trip home, so I spent it making sure Perdy would live. He not only lived; he flourished. Other partridges come and go from the grounds, but Perdy never leaves. He’s very attached.”

“Where’s the experiment in that?” John asked, because it sounded like a pet to him. 

Sherlock looked thoughtfully at Perdy. “The experiment is to make him stay alive. Anyway. It isn’t a pear tree, but it is a partridge in a tree.” Sherlock’s arm swept toward Perdy. “First day of Christmas.”

“Oh,” said John and looked back at Perdy, wondering what had got into Sherlock. “Thank you. But wasn’t the first day of Christmas yesterday?”

“Technically. But turtledoves are rare at this time of year.”

“And you don’t have any pet turtledoves to show me.”

“He isn’t my pet,” Sherlock insisted. 

“Yes, he is.” John grinned at him, openly teasing now. “I think it’s very sweet. You’re the only person I know with a pet partridge.”

“You’re being ridiculous again,” Sherlock told him, primly. 

John laughed, feeling fond in a bewildering way. Sherlock had traipsed him across the wilderness to see a _partridge_. Some sort of play on the song. What did that _mean_? 

John looked at Perdy the partridge. He sensed that Sherlock was looking at him. A moment of uncomfortable silence stretched just long enough that John was about to turn and ask Sherlock what this was all about, this out-of-the-way and pointed visit to a gift given in a song by a true love, when Sherlock said, “There are more.”

John did look at him then, silent but querying. 

“Experiments,” Sherlock clarified, with that blurred shyness that made John’s chest feel unaccountably tight. 

“Lead on,” said John, and Sherlock led. They walked all over the grounds, Sherlock keeping up a running litany of his experiments: current ones, past ones. He had, if his stories were to be believed, begun developing fascinating experiments from a very young age, displaying a depth of curiosity that John recognized now was still Sherlock’s overriding character trait. It was sharpened by a lack of social grace, a blunt and impatient rudeness, and some people might just dismiss it as off-putting weirdness, but it was really, at heart, just single-minded curiosity: Sherlock wanted to _know_ things. He would not be distracted from _knowing_. 

The sun had gone as high as it was going to go when they finally turned back to the house. Sherlock fell abruptly silent, a contrast that highlighted exactly how much he had been talking. 

“I…monopolized the conversation,” he blurted out, suddenly. “I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Don’t worry about it,” John replied, easily. “It was all very interesting.”

“Was it? No, it wasn’t. You think everything is interesting.”

“I really don’t.”

“I meant to, you know, establish a _dialogue_ ,” continued Sherlock, ignoring John. 

“Sherlock,” inserted John, as they reached the house. “Relax, would you? It was fine. Everything’s fine. _We’re_ fine. Your mother’s convinced this was a lovely romantic stroll.” John stopped at the door, looked up at Sherlock and smiled reassuringly. 

“Right,” Sherlock said, looking back at him. “Of course. Good.” Sherlock cleared his throat and reached for the door. 

Following some impulse he couldn’t name, John reached out and caught Sherlock’s arm, stopping him from opening the door. Sherlock looked at him inquisitively, that essential curiosity blazing from his eyes. 

“It was lovely,” John said. “I had a lovely time. Thank you.”

Sherlock, after a second, smiled, just a little bit, that hesitant, uncertain smile that always struck John as genuine. Then he pushed open the door and they went inside. 

Sherlock took the staircase up to their room two steps at a time. He would probably spend the rest of the day immersed in data analysis and forget to eat entirely. John sighed and gave up the idea of Sherlock eating lunch as a lost cause. He would focus on getting him to eat dinner. John went to the kitchen and made a sandwich for himself, and then a cup of tea. Carrying them into the library with a limp and a cane took some skill, but John had got used to accomplishing things with a limp and a cane and succeeded. 

The library was deserted, but a fire was burning merrily in the grate. John found one of the unexpectedly fascinating histories that dotted the library and settled down in the chair closest to the fire, tea near at hand. 

Which was when Sherlock entered, carrying a laptop. 

“I would like your professional opinion,” Sherlock said, planting the laptop unceremoniously on John’s lap, on top of the book he’d been reading. 

John looked from the laptop to Sherlock. “My professional opinion as an elf?” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and twitched the laptop impatiently. “As a doctor.”

“Sherlock,” sighed John. 

“This body here,” said Sherlock, opening the laptop and pointing to what was obviously a crime scene photo. “How would you say this woman died?”

“Seriously?” said John, looking at Sherlock. 

Sherlock looked as if he never said anything that _wasn’t_ serious. 

“How’m I supposed to diagnose cause of death from a single crime scene photo?”

“Not a single photo,” corrected Sherlock, clicking the mouse. “Several photos. And the autopsy report.”

John sighed again and looked at the photo. “Why?”

Sherlock blinked. “What?”

“Why am I diagnosing the cause of death?”

“Oh.” Sherlock looked as if he didn’t know what to make of John questioning _him_. “It’s a case I’m working on with the Met.”

“Consulting detective stuff?”

“Yes,” confirmed Sherlock. 

“This would help catch a murderer?”

Sherlock nodded, looking very solemn. 

John sighed for a final time, dropped the book from his lap to the floor, and adjusted the computer. “Fine,” he said. “Go sit over there and don’t bother me while I look this over.”

Sherlock didn’t know the meaning of the words “don’t bother.” Or if he did, he didn’t _acknowledge_ the meaning of the words. He sat in the chair across from John and said, immediately, “Are you doing it?”

“Doing it now,” John responded, clicking his way through photos. 

“Have you done it?” asked Sherlock.

“Oh, my God, _wait_ ,” John commanded. 

Sherlock waited five seconds or so, fidgeting violently, before saying, “Is—”

“She’s dead,” John cut him off. 

This gave Sherlock pause, before he said, “Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you’d go deeper.”

“Then you’ll have to let me work, won’t you?”

Sherlock, grumbling, flung himself dramatically to the floor in front of the fireplace, sprawling flat on his back with his head near John’s feet, staring up at the ceiling. John thought that Sherlock’s decision to place his head within kicking distance of John displayed a great deal of trust on Sherlock’s part. But at least Sherlock fell silent, turning his head slightly now to look into the fire, and John clicked through the photos and read the autopsy report and was taken a bit by surprise when Sherlock sighed. Not in exasperation or annoyance. He sighed like he was content. 

John looked around the laptop at him. His eyes were closed, and John wondered if he was asleep. 

“I’m not asleep,” mumbled Sherlock, drowsily. “Have you reached a conclusion yet?”

“Choked on her own vomit,” John said. “Just as the autopsy report said. No reports of any alcohol smell around her, so…”

“No, she didn’t smell of alcohol,” Sherlock murmured in agreement. “She took pills.”

“It was a suicide?” John realized. 

Sherlock turned his face more fully to the fire, still sprawled on his back, his hands clasped on his stomach, and didn’t answer. 

“Oh,” said John, thinking. “It’s one of _those_ suicides.”

“The serial suicides, yes. All victims of a single killer.”

John paused. “But they’re suicides.”

“They’re not. That woman had a perfectly good hotel room to commit suicide in. Why would she go to some deserted, falling-down house in a bad part of town? And lug her suitcase there with her besides? She didn’t commit suicide; she was murdered. All of them were. I just have to find the killer.” Sherlock opened his eyes, frowning into the fire. 

“How will you do that?” asked John. 

“Serial killers are always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake.”

“And people just go on dying in the meantime?” asked John, horrified. 

Sherlock shrugged briefly. 

John suppressed a shudder. But he had seen enough needless dying in the army. For a doctor, he’d seen far too much needless dying. “What can I do to help?” he said. 

Sherlock shifted, looking from the fire to John, having to tip his head back against the floor and arch his back slightly to meet his gaze. He said, “Do you want to help?”

“Of course I want to help,” replied John. 

“You wore the jumper I gave you.”

John glanced down at it. “Oh. Yes. Well, it’s a nice jumper and I thought, you know…” John trailed off, unsure what else to say, and shrugged a little bit. 

Sherlock smiled at him, small and genuine. “It goes quite well with your eyes. I knew that it would.”

“Pleased with yourself?”

Sherlock’s smile widened. “Always.”

“I’ve noticed,” remarked John, and nudged the toe of his shoe playfully against the side of Sherlock’s head, against the spring of his curls. 

The smile faded from Sherlock’s face. He stayed just as he was, half-upside-down so that his bright moonlight eyes could stay blazing on John, John’s eyes, the curve of John’s cheekbone, the brush of John’s fringe, John’s mouth. Settling, lingering, right there on John’s mouth. John felt himself lick his lips. He took a shallow breath and tightened his grip on the laptop and knew that he wouldn’t have looked away from Sherlock for anything in the world. 

Until Sherlock looked away, breaking the magnetic pull of the gaze, because Mycroft was walking into the room, saying, “Sherlock, you might—Oh.” Mycroft drew up short, and John knew he was taking in the sight of the two of them staring at each other, even though John, freed from Sherlock’s gaze, was now staring fixedly into the fire and pretending he was not on the verge of tumbling even further into complete and utter recklessness.

“Go away, Mycroft,” commanded Sherlock, casually dismissive. 

“I think that I shall,” replied Mycroft, slowly, musingly. 

John listened to him leave, scrubbed at his face with his hands, and tried to determine why he felt so discombobulated. He was _supposed_ to be dating Sherlock. It would have made perfect sense for Mycroft to spot them in a charged moment. It would have been even better if they’d been in a full-on snog. But somehow it all felt _wrong_. He was supposed to be playing the part of Sherlock Holmes’s Boyfriend, but just then, just that moment, with the firelight playing over Sherlock’s eerily beautiful face and Sherlock’s eyes flashing promises at him and the air sucked out of the room, he had not been playing any role. He had been John Watson, who wanted the man who was paying him only to pretend to want him. And complicating all of this with real sex would be…too much. It would feel a little bit like prostitution, and a little bit like cheating, and a lot like immense confusion. 

John thought he should get up and leave the room, but it didn’t seem safer to retreat to their bedroom, and it seemed ludicrous to go wandering around outside. And, anyway, he didn’t want to leave Sherlock. He liked being near him, he liked listening to him, he liked talking to him. And if he examined that too closely, he would have to leave entirely, he thought; he wouldn’t be able to keep doing any of this. 

But instead he said, “Have you any other murders a doctor might be helpful with?”

Sherlock had turned to the fire again, but now he twisted back into his almost-upside-down position and answered, “Loads.”


	6. Chapter 6

On the day after Boxing Day, John woke to Sherlock screeching at the violin. 

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he said, when John sat up, scowling. 

“Of course I’m bloody well awake,” spat out John. “What the hell are you _doing_?”

“A serenade,” answered Sherlock. 

“That is not a serenade. That is _noise_ ,” glared John. 

“Everyone’s a critic,” rejoined Sherlock, mildly. 

“Shut up and get out of this room,” John replied, and flung one of his pillows at him. 

“But,” said Sherlock, dodging the pillow with no effort at all, “I have plans for us today.”

John, grumbling, retreated back to his remaining pillow. “Do they involve three French hens?”

“No,” answered Sherlock readily. “But they do involve going into town. I thought you might like to get out of the house for a bit.”

John considered this from underneath his pillow. He probably wasn’t going to get back to sleep at this point, so he might as well get up. And a town excursion seemed like a nice way to kill the day. And probably safer than sitting by a romantic fire again looking through evidence on Sherlock’s laptop while Sherlock dozed at his feet. 

“Town could be nice,” John decided. 

***

Sherlock had clearly learned a lot about the town in preparation for this excursion. He shared anecdotes and statistics with John as if he’d learned them by rote. But John didn’t care because the town was charming. Almost as charming as Sherlock’s clear desire that John enjoy himself. Even though most of Sherlock’s tour was taken up with criminal history. John supposed that was what Sherlock thought was interesting, but John also found it very interesting, and that was mostly because there was clearly something wrong with him. 

Eventually Sherlock suggested tea, and John agreed because John almost never turned down an opportunity for tea, and Sherlock steered them to the tea shop on the town’s high street. It sat directly next to a music shop, and Sherlock stopped them in front of it and gestured to the window display and said, “Three French _horns_.”

“Oh, God,” said John, looking at the three French horns in the window. “That was terrible.” And Sherlock gave him that small smile of his. 

Once settled in the shop for tea, Sherlock said, “I’ve been monopolizing conversation again. You should say something about yourself.”

“Oh,” said John, sipping his cup of tea, and thought about enlisting, about Afghanistan, about getting shot, about coming home, about limping and trembling when he didn’t want to but with no clear idea how to fix himself. John thought of all of that, took another sip of tea, then said, lightly, “My birthday is March 17.”

Sherlock’s eyes were sharp on John in that all-seeing way of his, cataloguing everything that John didn’t want him to know or see, and John hated that feeling. He sipped his tea again and looked out the front window of the tea shop. 

“Tell me about James Bond films,” Sherlock said, suddenly. 

John was surprised into looking back at him. “What?”

“James Bond films. You love them, correct?”

“I…Yeah, I do.”

“Fine. Then let’s discuss them. Which is your favorite?”

“Have you ever seen a James Bond movie?”

“Of course not,” said Sherlock, adding a _don’t-be-an-idiot_ look to his tone, just for good measure. 

“Then what does it matter which is my favorite? You won’t know it.”

“Tell me it anyway. Tell me its plot.” Sherlock sipped his tea and looked expectant. 

“If you’ve never seen a James Bond movie, then the plot is going to sound ridiculous to you. Well,” John amended, “I suppose the plots are _always_ ridiculous, it’s just…Say you had gold paint.”

And John went over the plot of _Goldfinger_ , with Sherlock frowning and correcting the scientific inaccuracies of the plot, and then John said, “That plot looks like utter genius compared to, say, _Moonraker_ ,” which led to him going over the plot of _Moonraker_ and Sherlock frowning and correcting even more scientific inaccuracies, and then Sherlock said, “And you like these movies?” and John answered, “Sometimes you like things for everything that makes them silly. That’s true love, I suppose. Acknowledging all the terrible bits, and loving something _for_ those terrible bits.”

Sherlock looked thoughtful, as if John had just had some amazing insight into all of human civilization. 

John looked out the window at the people hurrying along the high street, heads down against a biting cold wind that had moved in. “So,” he remarked. “Can you look at these people and just… know everything about them?”

Sherlock followed his gaze. “Most things worth knowing.”

“Aren’t you a show-off,” commented John. 

“Yes,” Sherlock responded. 

“Go on, then. Be impressive.”

And Sherlock was, rattling off a long, detailed array of deductions about the strangers passing by. 

“How do we know any of this is true?” John asked, finally. “You’re probably just making it all up.”

“And you’d never know,” said Sherlock, with a satisfied smile, looking out the window still, “because I am a very good liar.”

“I’ve noticed. You’re doing an excellent job of coming up with romantic little dates.”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, suddenly very serious again, and drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. 

John felt like he’d said something wrong, because Sherlock’s mood had plainly shifted radically. They had been wrapped in such cozy intimacy, and time had been flying by as usual, and John had been content enough to sit in that tea shop forever, but instead now John felt as if the record had skipped and the spell had been entirely broken. 

“Bought you something,” John said, trying to salvage the conversation a bit, reaching into his bag. 

Sherlock’s fingers stopped drumming. He looked over at John in obvious surprise. “What? For what?”

“I don’t know,” John said, because he didn’t. Fake boyfriends were excused from gift-giving, John thought.

“When did you get it?” asked Sherlock, curiously. 

“When you were busy arguing about Schrödinger’s cat with that poor girl behind the counter.”

A look of horror crossed Sherlock’s face. “It isn’t Cluedo, is it? I told you not to buy that—” 

“It isn’t Cluedo. I bought the Cluedo for _me_. Here.” 

The book was a small and obviously very brief introduction to the history of the town and surrounding countryside, and Sherlock turned it over in his hands in evident bemusement. 

“It’s a history of the town,” John told him, helpfully. 

“Well, that I can tell,” Sherlock responded, with only a flash of irritation in his voice because he was busy staring down at the book with a look of astonished wonder. Sherlock opened it, and glanced at the first page, where John had hastily written an inscription while Sherlock had been busy arguing about the rules of chess with a little girl they’d encountered on the street: _Everything I’m sure you already know. Waiting for you to correct it._

“Oh,” said Sherlock, still not looking up. “It’s…Oh.”

John wasn’t sure how to interpret that. “You already have it, don’t you?” 

“Why would I have this?” asked Sherlock, closing the book. “I would never have bought something this silly myself.”

John passed over the description of his gift as “silly” and focused on the implication of Sherlock’s statement: He would never have bought it for himself, and who else would have bought it for him? John thought of Annabel’s father at church on Christmas Eve, so shocked that Sherlock might have a friend. And John thought of the game they’d just been playing, of Sherlock deducing everyone’s secrets as they strode down the high street. Sherlock was probably always like that; John could see it quite clearly. Clever and blunt, not the sort to make friends easily. _Sherlock has a deep need to love and be loved_ , John heard Violet saying, and Sherlock had no one. Sherlock had hired someone to pretend to be a boyfriend, _that’s_ how much “no one” Sherlock had. John suddenly felt that he should never have accepted Sherlock’s offer. He should have turned it down, forced Sherlock to be set up by his mother, allowing him the possibility of someone in his life to keep him from being so _lonely_. 

“Sherlock,” said John, his voice faltering. 

Sherlock looked up from the book, his expression as inscrutable as always. 

What the hell did he even want to _say_? “Anyway,” said John, clearing his throat and trying not to fidget because Sherlock would _notice_. “I hope you like it.”

Sherlock nodded once, slowly, thoughtfully, eyes on John’s fingers where he was keeping them still and steady. Then he said, “It’s late. We should go.”

“Right,” John agreed, trying not to seem as awkward as he felt. “Yes. Absolutely.”

They were in the car, driving back to the Holmes estate, before Sherlock said, his hands tight on the steering wheel and his gaze strictly facing forward, “Thank you. For the book. I should have said. Thank you.” He said it uncertainly, as if he wasn’t quite sure it was what he ought to be saying at all, as if English were a strange language he’d just learned and he was worried he might have just said, _Please may I marry your pig?_

John replied, with no idea what else he could possibly say, “You’re welcome.”

***

Sherlock was in the shower when John woke the following morning. John spent a moment lying in bed _not_ thinking of Sherlock, wet and naked, a few feet away. Then the shower turned off, and the bathroom door opened, and Sherlock walked out in nothing but a towel, his dark curls wet and dripping, and John gaped at the small of his back where it disappeared tantalizingly underneath the edge of the towel, and said, strangled, “Um.”

“It’s snowing,” Sherlock replied shortly, leaning over to pull some bit of clothing out of a dresser drawer. 

John stared at his current view of Sherlock’s towel-clad posterior, translated Sherlock’s statement, and looked out the window instead. It _was_ snowing, not heavily but steadily, and John wasn’t sure what that had to do with the nearly naked Sherlock he suddenly had on his hands. 

John looked back at Sherlock, who had in the meantime strode back into the ensuite and shut the door behind him. John took a deep breath and stared up at the bloody cherubs. 

The ensuite door opened again, and Sherlock emerged, more or less dressed. Well, in trousers at least, and a shirt that wasn’t buttoned yet. John had thought it would be an improvement but it was only worse. It made John want to nudge the fabric of the shirt aside with his nose, kissing his way up a greater and greater slice of chest. 

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked him negligently, buttoning his shirt and checking his reflection in the mirror. 

“Fine,” lied John. 

“Your breathing is elevated,” Sherlock continued, tucking his shirt in now and not really helping the rate of John’s breathing. “Not on the edge of a panic attack, are you?” Sherlock’s eyes, for the first time, shifted in the mirror to meet John’s. 

_The furthest thing from a panic attack_ , thought John. But then, considering his current position and how sodding complicated this all was, maybe a panic attack would be an appropriate response. “I’m fine,” said John. 

Sherlock looked out the window and frowned thunderously. “It’s _snowing_ ,” he said. 

***

Sherlock complained about the snow. He complained, and complained, and complained. By the second hour of the complaining, John asked, “Why do you hate snow so much?” and Sherlock responded, “I don’t. Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t say ridiculous things. In fact, everyone _stop talking_.” 

“You’re the only one who’s talking,” John pointed out. “You’re the only one who’s talked all morning. To complain. About the snow.”

“Shh!” commanded Sherlock. 

John turned the page of the newspaper he was reading. “It’s been quite delightful, really. Do go on.”

Sherlock prowled around the library, looking for all the world like a caged animal. John, watching him surreptitiously, was reminded again of the way he’d looked like an exotic plumed bird in John’s flat. Maybe Sherlock hated the confinement of the snow; maybe he needed the ability to escape. 

“There’s nothing you can do about the snow, Sherlock,” interjected Violet, calmly, from where she was sitting reading her own section of newspaper. “Until you invent a weather machine.”

“There’s something you could do,” suggested John. 

“Bored,” complained Sherlock, and flung himself onto the sofa. “I am bored, and everything is boring, and it’s _snowing_.”

“You don’t say,” remarked Violet. 

Sherlock sat up suddenly. “Where are the cigarettes?”

Violet blinked at him innocently. “What?”

“I know you hide some, in the house, so that Mycroft won’t know.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“As if you could hide anything from Mycroft.”

“Perhaps we ought to take leave of the subject of secrets, Sherlock,” said Violet, a warning edge to her voice. 

“I need a cigarette,” proclaimed Sherlock. 

“Haven’t you any of your own?”

“No,” Sherlock sulked. “John destroyed them.”

“I won’t have the bedroom reeking of smoke like it did the other night,” replied John calmly, and looked out the window. It was still snowing steadily, and there was a decent accumulation on the ground, but the weather really wasn’t that bad yet, nowhere approaching the white-out conditions forecast for later in the day. The biggest snowstorm Northumberland had seen in fifty years, the meteorologists were saying with great relish. John and Sherlock had both been paying little attention to the weather reports. It was Mycroft who broke the news of the storm, over breakfast, and then had promptly disappeared because he was very busy and had much to handle, even _more_ now that it was snowing, as he had announced superciliously, earning, like most things Mycroft said, a derisive snort from Sherlock. 

“I still don’t see why we can’t go into town,” grumbled Sherlock from the sofa. 

“Because you won’t make it back from town. And you can’t stay in town, you know there’s no room at the inn at this time of year.” 

“We could check to see if the manger’s empty, but it might not be pleasant in a snowstorm,” joked John. 

Sherlock and Violet both looked at him blankly. 

“You know.” John gestured. “No room at the inn?” They continued to have no reaction. “Okay, never mind,” sighed John, and then, “We could take a walk, if you like.”

“A walk where?”

“The wilderness,” John suggested. “It isn’t bad out yet; it actually might be quite pretty.”

“Boring,” proclaimed Sherlock, waving a hand about. 

“Less boring than sitting around here,” John pointed out, and anything that got Sherlock out of this room for a little while seemed like a good idea to John. 

“Is it?” asked Sherlock, doubtfully. 

“Yes,” John told him, firmly.

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” remarked Violet, blandly. “After all, John, with your leg, you could slip.” 

John’s vision actually went a little red around the edges for a moment but he tamped down on his rage. He was furious that Violet should treat him like an invalid, but then, what was he if not an invalid? It was the only thing he was anymore. Not a soldier, not a doctor, just someone for other people to pity and worry about. And he was _sick_ to _death_ of it. 

He stood and said, trying not to sound like he was biting it through his teeth in impatience, “I’ll be fine. Let’s go, Sherlock.” And then he limped out of the room in as dignified a manner as he could muster, head held high, shoulders back, and spine ramrod straight. 

Sherlock caught up to him as he was putting his jacket on, and Sherlock didn’t say a word, just pulled his own coat on and knotted his scarf and pulled on his gloves, and then they set out. 

The snow was thick, the flakes big and substantial, but it wasn’t unpleasant or disorienting. It was very quiet, the falling snow muffling all the sounds, and they walked without speaking for a little while, John following Sherlock’s lead determinedly and wishing he knew the trick to not limping. He _could_ do it, he’d done it several times over the past few days, but he couldn’t do it at _will_. 

They came to the edge of a small frozen pond, and Sherlock stood at its bank thoughtfully for a few seconds before putting an experimental foot on the ice. Then he turned to John and said, “Fancy some ice skating?”

“What?” asked John, because it had been a long time since they’d spoken, and it seemed to John to make no sense that the silence should be broken with an ice-skating invitation. The invitation seemed to come out of nowhere; John would not have supposed that Sherlock enjoyed ice skating. 

“That ice is quite thick enough. It’s been below freezing here for quite some time, and the pond is small and shallow. We used to keep ice skates in the boathouse; I’m sure we still do.”

Sherlock nodded toward a structure John hadn’t noticed, a pretty little shed sitting by the edge of the pond. John wondered what sort of boat they could put in a pond this small. He thought calling the shed a “boathouse” seemed unnecessarily grand. He supposed this suited the Holmeses in general. 

John licked his lips and was very conscious of the cane in his hand. “Sherlock, I can’t—”

“Ice skate? I’ll teach you,” said Sherlock, brusquely. 

“No. Sherlock—”

“You’ll be quite fine,” insisted Sherlock. “Come along.”

John hesitated, watching Sherlock stride through the falling snow in the direction of the boathouse, feeling helpless. He wanted to be fine. He wanted to put on a pair of ice skates and do this very normal thing, like an uninjured, unpitiable person. He took a deep breath and limped his way after Sherlock. 

The interior of the shed was dim and dusty and cold. Sherlock was weeding his way through a pile of ancient-looking ice skates. 

“Here,” he said, thrusting a pair at John without looking at him. “These should fit you.”

John regarded them skeptically. “Did these come with the house when the Holmeses bought it in 1887?”

Sherlock looked at him, his face lighting up with a brief, pleased smile. “You remember.”

“Of course I do. There’s nothing wrong with my memory,” said John, a little sourly, because he was attempting to put the ice skates on while also leaning on the stupid bloody cane he needed to keep his balance and not topple over. 

“Most people are idiots,” replied Sherlock. He sat right down on the dusty floor of the shed, heedless of the damage to his posh trousers and coat, and commenced pulling on his own pair of ice skates. 

It took some doing, but eventually they were both skate-clad, and John found that he could manage to tramp down through the accumulating snow to the edge of the pond while wearing ice skates. It was as if he had to think about his balance so much on the ice skates that he forgot to limp all that much. 

Sherlock glided out confidently onto the pond as soon as they reached the edge, and John thought that Sherlock had probably grown up ice-skating on this pond, and of course he looked as graceful as a sodding swan out there. John stood along the bank, undecided about whether his leg would hold if he tried to venture onto the ice. 

“Come along,” said Sherlock, skating up to a stop in front of him, and then he reached out and took John’s hands in his as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do so. 

“I really don’t think—” began John, and then Sherlock tugged, hard, and John stumbled forward, but instead of letting John go sprawling onto the ice, Sherlock held him upright, with a strength John wouldn’t have predicted, and then Sherlock was skating backward, picking up speed, and pulling John along with him. “Oh,” said John. 

Sherlock was watching John’s feet, guiding himself and John effortlessly along the pond’s edge as if he had eyes in the back of his head. “Do you know how to skate?” 

“Very vaguely. I dated a girl once who thought it would be romantic to go ice-skating on a date.”

“And was it?” asked Sherlock, still watching John’s feet. 

“It was romantic afterward,” said John. 

Sherlock glanced up with a twist of a smile on his face, and then back down at John’s feet. “It’s physics, you know. Mathematics. Maintaining your balance is, at heart, in all situations. You have to allow for the special properties of the ice vis-à-vis the blade, and these blades are quite dull, so that must be taken into account.”

“Sherlock,” said John. “There is no way I am going to be doing maths in my head while I’m worrying about toppling over.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about that,” rejoined Sherlock, lightly, his gaze still on John’s feet. “I won’t let you fall.” 

It struck John that not only had no one ever said those words to him before, but he’d also never before have believed them even if they had been said to him. Until that moment, he would never have trusted anyone not to let him fall. He had spent his entire life being the caretaker, the fixer, the one who made things better. His therapist said this was part of his problem, that he had trust issues, that he didn’t know how to let other people help him. And now here he was, with a fake boyfriend with whom he was so utterly besotted that he _trusted_ him, not to let him fall, to keep him moving forward. He trusted him enough to actually forget to punish himself by limping. 

John stared at the snow in Sherlock’s dark curls, at the level of concentration evident in the furrow on Sherlock’s brow as he watched John’s feet, and cleared his throat. “Have you ever taught anyone else how to skate?”

Sherlock snorted. “Don’t be absurd. Whom would I have taught to skate?” 

“Who taught you?”

“My father. When I was a boy.”

“Your father’s dead,” prompted John, cautiously. 

Sherlock’s eyes flickered briefly up to John, stony and cold. “My mother told you.”

“Yes,” John admitted. 

“He’s dead,” agreed Sherlock, shortly. 

Sherlock’s blades scissored sharply across the ice, and John’s blades made feeble whooshing sounds in response.

John said, “My father is dead, too.”

“Yes, I know,” responded Sherlock. “Died when you were in medical school.”

“Of course you know,” mumbled John. 

“Skating is all about edges,” said Sherlock, changing the subject. “You need to learn how to catch your outside edges and your inside edges, shift your skates just a bit so that you’re not centered anymore, so that you’re leaning just a bit in or out. That’s the only way you’ll start being able to propel yourself of your own volition.”

And Sherlock spent the next little while trying to teach John how to transition his ice skates from inside edges to outside edges and back again, claiming that this motion was the first basic motion of ice-skating. By the end of the little lesson, John was tentatively moving forward on his own, his hands out instinctively so he could grab for Sherlock when his balance wobbled. 

“You’d do better if you didn’t have your hands flailing all about,” Sherlock told him, when John caught at his sleeve to keep himself upright. 

“Well, I’ll have to work on that next time,” John said, without thinking, and Sherlock said nothing, just helped John tramp off the ice and back into the boathouse, where they exchanged skates for shoes in silence. 

There was hot cocoa waiting by the fire in the library when they walked in, but otherwise the room was deserted. John sank happily into the chair in front of the fire, letting the warmth lick at sore muscles he’d forgot existed. The cocoa was somehow the perfect temperature, and John thought the evidence was mounting that Harrison was simply a wizard. 

“This is lovely,” John sighed in contentment, and opened his eyes to find Sherlock sitting by the fire, staring into it gravely. “Respectable substitute for a trip into town,” John said. 

“I was going to take you to Angelo’s,” responded Sherlock, with a bit of a pouty downward turn of his lips. 

“Angelo’s?”

“A restaurant in town. Owner owes me a favor.”

“Does Angelo’s have five gold rings?”

“Angelo once _stole_ five gold rings,” said Sherlock, smiling, and sipped at his cocoa. 

John laughed.


	7. Chapter 7

The snow picked up speed, and the wind howled around the house and down the chimney, causing the flames of the fire to flicker. John suggested that they play Cluedo. He thought this would be a good way to pass the time. Sherlock sulked and whinged and resisted, and John had to wheedle and cajole and coax, and once he convinced Sherlock to play he realized it had been a huge mistake. Sherlock threw a strop when it turned out the victim was _not_ in fact the murderer, complaining that this was the only logical solution, and picked up John’s Cluedo board and pinned it to the wall with a polished dagger that he had pulled out of the library’s desk. 

John stared at it. “I suppose I should be glad you didn’t fling it into the fire.”

“ _Stupid_ game,” announced Sherlock, passionately, and flung himself onto the sofa in a huff. 

“Why do you even have a dagger in that desk?”

“It _had_ to have been the victim.”

“That’s against the rules,” John pointed out. 

“Then the rules are wrong,” proclaimed Sherlock, with finality, and turned his back to John, facing the back of the sofa. 

John shook his head, looked at the board on the wall, and wondered if Violet was going to be very angry at having a dagger thrust into her plaster. Maybe it was just par for the course here. 

John had not seen Violet or Mycroft since they had returned from ice-skating. Harrison had stopped by the library, in the middle of the Cluedo game, with a small cold supper for the two of them, which John had eaten and Sherlock had, typically, picked at. Other than that, John had seen no one. It could have been that he and Sherlock were wrapped up together in their own cozy little world, snow-bound. It should have been very romantic. If they had been real boyfriends, they would have been wrapped in blankets by the fire, snogging lazily. Instead, they were doing…whatever this was. 

A bell rang, and Sherlock sat bolt upright. 

“A visitor!” he exclaimed. “In the middle of the night, in the middle of this storm? Impossible!” He leapt off the sofa and went scrambling into the front hall. “Maybe there’s been a murder!”

John, confused, followed Sherlock into the front hall, where Sherlock had flung the door open. Snow blew in on a blast of cold, slicing wind, and the visitors—for there were multiple, one a child and one an adult—stomped into the front hall, bundled up and crusted with snow, only their eyes truly visible. 

Sherlock was peering at them closely. “Well?” he demanded. “What’s happened? Something exciting? Has someone died? Mysterious circumstances? Anything could happen in a snowstorm, ideal conditions to make it all look like an accident. Speak up!”

John came up to Sherlock and placed a hand against his, not quite holding it, just a brush of skin, enough to silence Sherlock. “Hey,” he said, softly, sensing Sherlock staring at him in surprise and thinking that Sherlock was doing a terrible job of pretending they were boyfriends if he was going to act this shocked by being touched by John. “Give them a second to catch their breaths, Sherlock. We have a fire going in the library,” he said to the visitors, who were unwinding their scarves, so that John could now clearly recognize them as Annabel and her father. 

Annabel shook her head urgently, forcefully, and said, “Is Spot here?”

_Oh_ , thought John, and glanced at the window by the door, at the dark, swirling white-out conditions of the storm. Sherlock made an impatient sound of disgust, threw off John’s hand, and stomped out of the front hall. John ignored him. “No,” he answered, gently, and Annabel’s eyes welled up with tears. 

“He’s lost,” she said. “He’s lost in the storm. He’s going to _die_.”

“I’m sure he’ll be clever enough to seek shelter,” John promised her, and glanced at Annabel’s father, who had creases of worry around his eyes. “He’s a clever pup, I’m sure.”

“Of course he is,” said her father, too heartily. “What did I tell you? He’ll be just fine.”

“We’ll never find him,” wailed Annabel. “He’s lost and cold and scared and we’ll never find him.”

“He’ll find us,” inserted Annabel’s father, obviously trying to sound comforting. “We’ll go home and he’ll—”

“Go home?” shrieked Annabel in alarm. “We can’t go home! We have to keep looking! Daddy—”

“The storm is too severe, Annabel,” he told her. “What good would it do Spot for the two of us to get lost, too? At any rate, no one could track a dog in this weather. They’d have to be the world’s best hunt—” He cut himself off, as if abruptly realizing the implications of the word _hunter_ , and finished with, “Detective.”

John’s eyes widened. Because he _had_ a detective in this house. “Wait a second,” he told Annabel and her father. “Wait right here.”

They looked at him, bewildered, and John turned to go in search of Sherlock. He registered Violet, wrapped in a dressing gown, standing at the top of the staircase and watching the proceedings below curiously, and he had to brush past Mycroft on his way to the library, where Sherlock was predictably curled into a ball on the sofa, back into his sulk. 

“Sherlock,” said John, sweeping into the room. “Annabel has lost her dog.”

“Hmph,” responded Sherlock. 

“She needs our help to find him.”

Sherlock twisted to look at him over his shoulder. “What?”

“She needs our help. She needs _your_ help. Get up and put your coat on.”

“You want me to go out in that storm?” said Sherlock in disbelief. 

“Yes. I do.”

“For a _dog_?”

“For that little girl’s dog? Yes.”

Sherlock shook his head and turned back to the storm. “She doesn’t need my help. I don’t locate lost dogs. I’m not a _pet detective_.” 

“Sherlock.” John marched over to the sofa and loomed over Sherlock. “You turn over this instant and look at me.”

There must have been something in his tone that made Sherlock obey, because he did just as John requested, his wide gray eyes astonished and unblinking. 

John leaned down, speaking low so that Annabel wouldn’t hear him in the front hall. “This is the worst storm Northumberland has seen in a century. No dog would stay out in this willingly. That means he’s likely in trouble somewhere. That means that if we don’t go out and look for him, he will probably _die_ , Sherlock. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Sherlock stared at him, looking utterly confused. He said, “Why should it?”

John closed his hands into fists and admirably did not shake Sherlock until sense came into his head. He didn’t say a single word. He straightened and stalked back into the front hall, past Mycroft, who was now standing in the doorway of the library. John went into the kitchen, where he’d left his coat and gloves, and then, still half-stomping in his anger, he went back to the front hall and began pulling on his coat. Mycroft was back in the front hall now, and Violet had descended the staircase, and they and Annabel and her father were all gaping at him. 

“What are you doing?” asked Violet, finally, as John tugged his gloves on with a bit more force than was necessary. 

“I am going,” he bit out, “to help Annabel find Spot.”

“In this—” Violet began, but John whirled on her and cut her off with a look. She fell silent, looking at him with the same astonishment that had been on Sherlock’s face, and John suddenly saw a strength of family resemblance between the two that he’d missed before. 

“Yes,” John said, and then turned to Annabel and her father. “Let’s go.”

Annabel beamed at him, her tears drying on her cheeks. “I knew you would help, John!” she exclaimed, and John had the impression she would have done an impromptu jig in her snow boots if she had not been dressed in so many layers of clothing that she could barely move. 

“You should stay here by the fire, Annabel,” John told her. “Your father and I will—”

“Yes, excellent idea,” agreed Violet. “I’ll make you some hot cocoa, darling.”

Annabel looked crestfallen. “But Spot—”

John decided that this was not a time when Annabel would be offended by him pointing out, “Your father and I are bigger, so we can move a bit faster and get to Spot that much more quickly. And then we’ll bring him right back here once we find him.”

“And then you and your father and Spot can spend the night until the storm ends in the morning and the paths become passable again,” contributed Violet. 

“That’s very kind of you,” said Annabel’s father. “And it’s really not—”

“Nonsense. I won’t hear another word about it. Come along, Annabel. I think we have some pudding in the kitchen as well.”

Annabel turned to her father. “You’ll come back with Spot as soon as—”

“We’ll all be back before you know it,” her father promised, and kissed her cheek. 

Annabel nodded and then took the hand Violet was offering her. 

John looked at Violet, relieved, and said, heartfelt, “Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Violet replied, which confused him, but John didn’t have time to puzzle through it, because Annabel’s father said, “Should we get started?” and they tugged the door open and stepped out into the storm. 

They hadn’t got very far at all, shouting for Spot through the dizzying vortex of the snow all around them, when Annabel’s father grabbed John’s arm and said, “Is that a torch coming at us?”

It was, bouncing and bobbing and weaving through the falling snowflakes, and as it came closer John realized, incredulously, “It’s Sherlock.”

It was, bundled in his coat, with his scarf firmly knotted at his neck and a ridiculous deerstalker cap smashed on top of his head, over his curls. He came up to them, and John stood and gaped at him, not knowing what else to do. 

“You didn’t even bring torches with you,” said Sherlock, his voice dripping with disgust. “ _Idiots_.” He handed a torch to Annabel’s father, who said, uncertainly, “Thank you,” and then one to John. 

John took it automatically, then said, “What are you doing?”

“The maddest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Sherlock answered, sulkily. “I’ve apparently lost my mind.” 

Suddenly, impulsively, before he realized he was going to do it, John closed a hand in Sherlock’s coat collar and tugged until their lips met, quickly and firmly, too briefly for Sherlock to respond, and when John released him Sherlock looked shell-shocked. John, feeling embarrassed that he had done it at all, turned quickly to Annabel’s father, who was studying the snow on the ground, and said, “Okay. Well. Three people now. We should be able to cover more ground.”

Sherlock cleared his throat awkwardly and then seemed to recover himself, because the next thing he said was, “Are you just going to stumble about here like fools hoping to trip over this dog?”

“Do you have a suggestion?” asked Annabel’s father, sounding annoyed. 

“Yes. Bring me back to your house; we’ll track where he went.”

“You won’t be able to track him in this storm.”

“I believe,” Sherlock remarked, imperiously, “that you said you needed the world’s best detective.”

***

Sherlock followed clues only he could see, and John thought it possible that he was just making all of them up, and John and Annabel’s father tramped along behind him. John was growing increasingly cold and stiff, and the storm seemed to be getting even worse than it had been, and John didn’t know how much longer they could zig-zag over hill and dale at Sherlock’s whim, looking for a dog who, if he had been caught in this weather, might possibly already be stuck in a snowbank half-frozen to death. 

And then, abruptly, Sherlock disappeared between two decent-sized boulders. John blinked, wondering if hypothermic people could see mirages the same way that people dying of thirst in deserts did. Then Sherlock reappeared, gesturing and calling for them. John exchanged an amazed look with Annabel’s father, and they hurried forward. 

The boulders were set close together, rising to about half John’s height, and somehow Sherlock had folded himself to get into the small crevice between them. Because in the crevice, which John leaned down to peer into when Sherlock gestured, was Spot, shivering. When Spot saw Annabel’s father and John, he whined a bit and thumped his tail in greeting, and John registered that the dog had a nasty gash on his hind leg that explained why he had not been responding to their calls and had not made his way back home. John leaned into the crevice as far as he could, deciding that the wound wasn’t life-threatening but it could do with some stitches. At any rate, they couldn’t leave Spot here. 

He straightened out of the crevice and looked at Annabel’s father. “He’s going to be okay,” he told him. “But we’re going to need to carry him back to the house.”

Annabel’s father nodded, and after a bit of maneuvering and a little bit of protest on the part of Spot, they managed to get the dog into his arms and then to make the long, slow trek back to the Holmes house. 

Annabel was still awake when they got there, and she leaped up when they stumbled through the door. 

“Spot! Spot! You found him!” she exclaimed, and then, fearfully, getting a closer look at him, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing major,” John assured her cheerfully, pulling his coat and gloves off. “We’re just going to have a quick little medical procedure.”

“Really?” Annabel looked caught between horror and fascination. 

“Yes. Just put him on the floor there,” John told Annabel’s father. 

“What are you going to do?” Violet asked him. 

“Just stitch him up a bit.”

“You can’t do that leaning over on the floor. Put the dog on the table.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes. And what else do you need?”

Violet was an able nurse, and Annabel stood by John’s side and watched wide-eyed as he gently cleaned the wound and then stitched it up. 

“I don’t know much about dog anatomy,” he told her, “but I think he’ll be as good as new.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Annabel gave him a tight and enthusiastic hug, and then spun away, running toward the other end of the kitchen, where Sherlock had been standing in the corner, silent and watchful. “And thank _you_!” She launched herself into a hug of Sherlock’s legs, which were the only part of him she could reach. 

John decided that the look on Sherlock’s face was worth every moment of struggling through the snow to find Spot. 

They got Spot settled for the night, and then Violet took Annabel and her father off to a spare bedroom, and John found Sherlock sitting in the darkened library, watching the fading red of the embers of the dying fire. 

“Coming up to bed?” John asked him, pausing in the doorway. 

“I don’t think so,” Sherlock answered, thoughtfully, not looking at John. “I’m not tired.”

Sherlock was almost never tired, thought John, except for his uncharacteristic Christmas morning sleep. Maybe Sherlock only slept once a week. “All right,” he said. “Then. Good night.”

Sherlock didn’t respond, kept staring at the fire. 

John hesitated in the doorway, then walked into the room. “Listen,” he said. “Thank you.”

Sherlock finally looked at him, looking puzzled. “For what?”

“For finding Spot. I know you didn’t want to. I know you didn’t care.” John stood in front of Sherlock, looked down at him, at the fading fire casting shadows on his face. _Why did you do it?_ he wanted to ask. _Did you do it for me?_

Sherlock stared up at him, eyes wide and luminous even in the half-light, color completely unclassifiable and expression completely unreadable. His lips were parted slightly, that alluring bow, his lower lip pouting slightly in what looked for all the world like an invitation. 

John stared at Sherlock’s mouth. “You’re sitting underneath the mistletoe,” he said. 

Sherlock glanced up, registering the mistletoe with obvious surprise. “I am,” he realized. 

John leaned down, bracing himself on Sherlock’s chair, and kissed him, and he meant to keep it soft and chaste, a question of a kiss, but Sherlock answered the question for him, parting his lips and deepening the kiss. John felt upside-down and inside-out and pulled back abruptly, breathing hard, keeping his eyes closed and taking a moment, just a moment, to try to get the world to stop spinning so quickly, and then Sherlock’s hands were in John’s hair, tugging him back, and John couldn’t think and couldn’t breathe and wanted to do neither because everything was _Sherlock_ , electric, amazing, wonderful _Sherlock_. Sherlock. Sherlock. Who wasn’t like anyone John had ever met. Who was unbelievable. Who was…not his. Not really. Who was so far beyond anyone John had ever dated. Who was paying him to play this role. Who was…

John tried to pull back. “Is this a good idea?”

“Brilliant,” mumbled Sherlock, kissing him again. His hand dipped from John’s hair, pressing up against the front of John’s jeans, and John practically collapsed into Sherlock’s lap, weak-kneed with pleasure. “Oh, look, you think so, too,” said Sherlock into John’s ear, and then his teeth tugged on John’s earlobe and John swore and panted into Sherlock’s neck and thought that of _course_ Sherlock thought this was a good idea. Sherlock probably thought it would be casual, uncomplicated sex, and it would add verisimilitude to their boyfriend-ness while being a lot of fun at the same time, and John couldn’t do it, because John was _crazy_ for Sherlock. John couldn’t have sex with Sherlock, because John _loved_ Sherlock, and Sherlock was going to break his heart, and how had he been such an _idiot_ , how had he let this _happen_?

“Stop,” he gasped. “Stop.” 

Sherlock stopped. His lips left John’s skin and his hands left John’s body. John, leaned awkwardly over the chair, half in and half out of Sherlock’s lap, squeezed his eyes shut tightly and kept himself from leaning his head down, pressing his face into Sherlock’s neck, nuzzling his skin and breathing to him exactly how far gone he was, exactly how much he’d managed to fall in love with this infuriating, impossible man, and what was he going to _do_?

“I…I…” said John, and then opened his eyes, pushed himself off of Sherlock, and half-stumbled out of the library, refusing to look at Sherlock. 

John got into bed, where he lay awake until morning, his breath short with terror. He had fallen in love with him. He had _fallen_ in _love_ with him. With a man who was basically his…what would you even call him? Business partner? _Client?_ With a man who, in a little more than a week, was going to pay him a great deal of money and then walk out of his life and whom he would then never see again. Sherlock was going to break his heart, and John had no one to blame but himself, for getting himself so utterly tangled up. 

Sherlock never came in.


	8. Chapter 8

John finally dragged himself out of bed as soon as the morning approached an hour when people might be expected to be awake. He did not see Sherlock on his way to the kitchen, where he checked on Spot. Spot looked much better and, while it would be a while before he could leap about energetically, there was nothing wrong with his tail muscles or his slobbering abilities. 

John was still in the kitchen scratching behind a lolling Spot’s ears when Annabel and her father appeared. Annabel’s father—John really had to get his name at some point—looked awkward, but Annabel just skipped joyfully over to Spot, completely unself-conscious. 

“We, er, should be getting going,” said Annabel’s father, peering outside at the blinding white world the blizzard had left behind. 

Which would leave John alone to have some sort of uncomfortable encounter with Sherlock, which he was rather keen to avoid. Which he knew was cowardly of him, because sooner or later he was going to have to run into Sherlock again. But he was waiting for the sense memories of Sherlock’s hands on him, of Sherlock’s tongue stroking against his, of Sherlock’s breath against his skin, to fade enough that John thought he could trust himself to see Sherlock and not launch himself on top of him. 

“Stay for breakfast,” John said, which maybe was overstepping his bounds as a guest in the house, but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

“No, thank you, but I think we’ve imposed too much already,” responded Annabel’s father, and John didn’t blame him. The Holmeses were intimidating. “Come along, Annabel.” He handed her her coat and gloves before turning back to John. “Could you thank Mrs. Holmes for us again? And, er, Sherlock?” 

“Yes,” replied John, faintly, trying not to let his face fall too much. He looked outside. And had an idea. “Lot of snow out there,” he remarked, casually. 

“Yes, it was quite a storm,” Annabel’s father agreed, pulling on his own coat and gloves. 

“Perfect for making a snowman, I suspect.” John looked at Annabel, whose eyes predictably widened. 

“Are you going to make a snowman?” she asked. 

“I think I shall,” John answered, musingly. “Maybe a snowman _and_ a snowwoman.”

Annabel gasped and turned to her father. “Can Spot and I stay to help? Please, please, _please_?” she begged, bouncing about in her eagerness. 

“Annabel…” her father began. 

“That would be fantastic,” John said, quickly and firmly. “I could use some help.”

“Brilliant!” proclaimed Annabel, and executed a quick dance step of joy. 

“Let me just get my coat on here,” said John, reaching for it. 

Annabel’s father raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to go out and build a snowman _now_?”

John was aware it was very early. He was aware that he hadn’t yet had any coffee. He was also aware that this was very suspicious behavior for him to be engaging in. But he didn’t care. He needed to be out of the house before Sherlock came down to the kitchen and possibly tried to kiss him again. Or possibly didn’t try to kiss him again. Which might actually be worse. 

John had to get out of this house before he went mad with the thoughts spinning around his head. 

“No time like the present,” he said, pulled his gloves on, and headed out into the winter wonderland of the back garden. 

The snowman was one of the best ideas he’d ever had. The snow was wet and heavy, perfectly suited for the task, and it was easy to get lost in the act of clumping it together in an increasingly satisfyingly large ball. Annabel’s father left Annabel behind, warning her not to stay too long and not to be too much of a bother. Annabel nodded impatiently and told John she wanted to make a snow _dog_ instead of a snowman, but after an aborted start they determined that maybe a snowman was all that was suited to their skill level. In fact, John secretly thought even a snow _woman_ was pushing their luck. 

John wasn’t sure how long they were out there toiling away before Sherlock said, behind him, “Is that meant to be a snowman?”

John was busy patting snow onto the snowman’s shoulder, while Annabel was digging through the shallower snow by the terrace for sticks to serve as arms. John thought this was an optimistic idea of hers. He had decided that, as soon as he finished with the snowman’s torso, he would go and break a couple of small branches off a tree. 

He looked over his shoulder at Sherlock, who looked as dazzling in the snowscape as he usually did, as he had last night. _That ethereal creature kissed you last night_ , John reminded himself. _Would have done a lot more, only you told him to stop._ John considered the possibility that he was a complete idiot, because Sherlock was clearly way out of his league. John had never been able to pull any man even half as second-glance-compelling as Sherlock was, and now he had just turned down the opportunity to shag him. 

_Because you’re in love with him_ , that voice reminded him. _It wouldn’t be just a shag. You’re going to get your heart even more broken._

And John couldn’t even quarrel with the internal voice, because the internal voice was _right_. He was in love with Sherlock. It was undeniable. Looking at him in the snowscape, it wasn’t really lust. Not entirely. John wanted to take Sherlock’s hand, wanted to rub his nose into Sherlock’s skin, wanted to make him laugh until he smiled, soft and fond, and maybe even kissed the tip of John’s nose. Oh, God, he was fantasizing about _having the tip of his nose kissed_. 

“Hi,” John said, because he’d forgotten Sherlock’s initial question while he’d been standing there gaping at him. 

Sherlock raised an amused eyebrow and replied, “Hi.” Then he clasped his hands behind his back and trudged through the snow around the snowman, examining it closely. He looked like a tsar making an imperial inspection. If John had tried to do that, he would have fallen into a snow bank halfway through. 

The thought of falling had him widening his eyes abruptly and looking all around him. 

“You left it at the boathouse yesterday,” Sherlock told him, blandly, peering at the snowman. “You propped it against the wall to change into the ice skates and you haven’t looked for it since.” 

He’d been without his cane all this time, John realized. Suddenly, fast on the heels of the shock, John found himself worried he was about to topple over at any moment. He stood very still in the snow, leaning a bit on the snowman, trying not to look like he was panicking. 

Sherlock straightened and abruptly turned his sharp, all-seeing gaze on John, sweeping past all of John’s defenses as if he were swatting away gnats. “You don’t need it,” he said, easily reading John’s thoughts. 

“Knowing that is very different from _feeling_ it,” John managed. 

“Your snowman doesn’t have a head,” said Sherlock, changing the subject. 

“We’re making the head _now_ ,” inserted Annabel, indignantly, coming back towards them, beaming and brandishing two spindly sticks at John. “Look!”

“What are those?” asked Sherlock, eyeing them. 

“Arms, of course,” answered Annabel. 

Sherlock looked dubious. “Not anatomically correct.”

“Snowmen seldom are, Sherlock,” John told him, taking the sticks Annabel offered and thrusting them into the snowman’s torso. 

“And you’ve just put an arm in the middle of the snowman’s stomach. Really, John, you’re a doctor, you should know better.”

John looked at the placement of the stick, allowing it was possibly slightly off-center. “Sherlock,” sighed John. “It’s a _snowman_.”

“A dead snowman,” said Sherlock. 

“Snowmen aren’t living,” Annabel informed him, primly, and John half-expected her to stick her tongue out at him. 

“This one doesn’t even have a head.”

“I told you: We’re making a head,” Annabel reminded him. 

“It could be a crime scene,” Sherlock suggested, thoughtfully. “A beheaded snowman.”

“Sherlock Holmes, snow detective,” said John, covering his uncertainty with sarcasm, because he still didn’t trust himself to move away from the comforting presence of the snowman he was leaning on.

But Annabel looked interested now. “What could we use for blood?” she asked Sherlock. 

“Why can’t we use blood?” Sherlock countered, blankly. 

“Sherlock,” inserted John. 

“What? I must still have some stashed in a freezer somewhere.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” sighed John. 

“Maybe snowmen don’t bleed,” remarked Annabel. “Maybe they bleed _ice_.”

“I cannot believe we’re having this conversation,” said John. 

But Sherlock and Annabel were paying him no heed, already caught up in making their decapitated snowman head, which they placed artfully at the snowman’s foot. Annabel insisted on making a face with pebbles she had uncovered on the terrace. Sherlock complained that the snowman didn’t even look dead. John stood with one hand carefully on the snowman and watched the proceedings with tolerant amusement, unsure whether he ought to intervene or not. Spot bounded through the snow with an increasing range of movement, barking joyfully. 

Once the murdered snowman was complete, Annabel stepped back, regarded her handiwork, and gave one brisk nod. “Excellent,” she pronounced. “I think it’s perfect. And now I should really go home. Mum’ll be looking for me. Come on, Spot!”

John wanted to protest, to tell her to stay a little longer, because if she left then he would be alone with Sherlock, and Sherlock would bring up the snog under the mistletoe, and John was desperate not to talk about the snog under the mistletoe, even if he was apparently powerless to stop _thinking_ about the snog under the mistletoe. But Annabel was off before he could fully form a protest, and John looked after her to delay having to look at Sherlock, and that was when the snowball hit him solidly on the back of his head, just where his skull gave way to the nape of his neck. 

“Ow,” John protested, turning his head in time to get a face full of snow. “What the…” he sputtered, wiping the sting of the snow away from his face, and ducked to avoid the next snowball. “What are you _doing_?”

“Don’t be an idiot, John,” rejoined Sherlock, merrily, and John reacted instinctively, grabbing for snow, rolling it into a hasty ball, and then flinging it at Sherlock, catching Sherlock just on his shoulder as he turned away in a dodging maneuver to protect his face. 

Sherlock came up swinging with more ammunition, and John grabbed for more snow, too, and soon the snow was flying so quickly and furiously that John wasn’t sure either of them was actually bothering to make snowballs anymore so much as just flinging handfuls of snow at each other. Sherlock eventually took a few steps backward, and John shouted, “Aha! A retreat!” and stalked him ruthlessly. 

“It’s not a retreat,” Sherlock denied, flinching a little and turning his head this way and that to try to ward off the snow John was firing at him even as he tried to grab for more of his own. “It’s a strategic—”

Sherlock abruptly lost his footing in the snow, tumbling downward and taking John with him, because John hadn’t been able to stop his forward momentum in time. Which was how John came to find himself sprawled over Sherlock in the snow, their bodies in almost perfect alignment. Sherlock’s face, only inches beneath his own, was pink with cold and flushed with the snowball fight and painfully inviting. John’s breath caught. 

“Still not using a cane,” Sherlock pointed out, sounding deliciously breathless, and was that entirely from the snowball fight? And then Sherlock kissed him. Or maybe John kissed Sherlock. It was all a little unclear, just that there was a kiss happening, fierce and single-minded. John lifted himself slightly, trying to get more leverage, a better angle, his hands slipping through Sherlock’s damp hair to the snow underneath, then coming back up to tug hard at the thick curls.

Sherlock growled and flipped them over. John found himself suddenly on his back in the snow, and it was wet and cold but he didn’t care about that at all. Sherlock licked into his mouth and John pulled him closer, arching into him, hooking a leg around Sherlock’s to keep him just _there_. Sherlock murmured an approving noise and then shifted to kiss underneath John’s jaw. 

“Jesus Christ,” John gasped, opening his eyes. Dazzling blue sky was stretching over his head and Sherlock’s lips were nibbling on his neck. 

Sherlock made that approving noise again, this time against John’s Adam’s apple. 

John groaned and said, “Come _back_ here,” and tugged Sherlock back up so he could capture his mouth again. 

Then a voice from beyond Sherlock, from the direction of the house said, “I gave you my number. Thought you might call.” 

Sherlock froze, lifting his head up. John, feeling mortified, peered out from around Sherlock, at the smartly dressed man who was now standing next to them. The man who was returning John’s gaze even while he was addressing Sherlock.

“Now I can see why you didn’t,” continued the man, smirking. 

John wasn’t sure why, but he felt far more irritated than humiliated now. He frowned at him. 

Sherlock said, “Jim,” and then nothing else, which seemed uncharacteristic of Sherlock. 

Jim’s eyes flickered briefly over to Sherlock, long enough for him to smile and say, “Hello, my dear,” in a drawling tone of voice that belied the words, and then he turned back to John and said, by way of introduction, “Jim Moriarty.” Then he waggled his fingers in a mockery of a wave and sing-songed, “Hi.” 

***

For some reason, Sherlock was sitting having tea with Jim Moriarty. It was almost _polite_ of him, and John couldn’t fathom what was going on or who Jim Moriarty even was. Well. A distant neighbor who had stopped by for an impromptu visit, Violet had explained, by way of making introductions, when they had finished their awkward walk back into the house, and John supposed that was fine but it didn’t explain why Sherlock had stayed to have tea with him as if he suddenly believed in social niceties. And it didn’t explain why Moriarty’s reptilian eyes kept slithering from Sherlock to John and back again, leaving John feeling slimy and uncomfortable and not at all soothed by the dangerous smile Moriarty kept smiling. 

John had tried to get out of this social encounter, but Sherlock had insisted, and John wasn’t sure if it was something he was being paid to do, this whole tea-with-Moriarty thing, so John was sitting in silence next to Sherlock and sipping tea steadily while Violet made small talk with Moriarty about art. 

“What about you, Dr. Watson?” asked Moriarty, smirking into his teacup. The man never seemed to stop smirking. “Are you a fan of art?”

“I like the Mona Lisa,” John answered, coldly, and Moriarty laughed. 

“He’s sweet,” he said to Sherlock. “I can see why you like having him around.”

Sherlock said nothing, just looked back at Moriarty inscrutably and sipped his tea. 

“I had heard rumors you were going into horses,” inserted Violet, pointedly.

Moriarty kept his eyes on Sherlock, ignoring her. “Played any games lately?” Moriarty looked at John when Sherlock didn’t answer. “Sherlock used to love to play games. He’s like me: needs to be distracted. Just like me. Only he’s boring. He’s on the side of the angels.” Moriarty turned to Violet. “Such an angel, your son. Must take after his mother.”

Violet smiled without amusement and said, “Oh, dear, look at the time. I am sorry, but we’ve a dinner engagement in town.” Violet stood. 

Moriarty took the obvious hint after a moment, but he did it slowly, as if to prove that he was taking it only because he wanted to. “Ciao,” he said to Sherlock and John. 

“Catch you later,” Sherlock replied, the first thing he had said since they had sat down to tea. 

“This way, Jim, if you please,” said Violet, and led Jim out of the room. 

John turned to Sherlock immediately. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Nothing.” Sherlock stood, re-buttoned his suit jacket, and left the room. 

John sat and tried to determine what he ought to do. What would a fake boyfriend do? A real boyfriend would demand to know exactly who Moriarty was, because there was an odd undercurrent between him and Sherlock that would have made any real boyfriend sit up a little straighter. But did a _fake_ boyfriend have any right at all to make a fuss over an ex showing up unexpectedly? Or would it look suspicious if that fake boyfriend didn’t make a fuss? 

Violet walked back into the room before John had made a decision about whether or not he should go after Sherlock. “Thank God he’s gone,” she said, and then, “I suppose Sherlock has fled?”

John considered what to say. “I was surprised he sat down to tea at all.”

Violet sat opposite John and looked thoughtful. John could tell she was choosing her next words very carefully. “Jim has always held an irresistible fascination for Sherlock.” 

John had no idea what to say to that, real or fake boyfriend-wise. So he said, “Oh.”

“It’s not anything you should—” Violet hastily clarified, then cut herself off with, “Bollocks,” which was so uncharacteristic that John blinked in surprise. “He’s a nasty little snake, Jim Moriarty, and I cannot abide him. Sherlock was friendly with him, when they were younger, but I never approved of it.”

John was confused. “You just had tea with him.”

Violet sighed. “His father is a lovely man, a professor, friendly with my husband. And I thought maybe…it’s been years since I saw him, or since Sherlock has seen him, as far as I know. I thought…I don’t know. I should have turned him away as soon as I saw who it was, but I…I’m sorry. John.” Violet leaned forward suddenly, took John’s hands tightly in her own. “Tell me I haven’t ruined everything. Please. Don’t let Sherlock…Things have been going _so_ well. Please can you understand…?”

John looked down at Violet’s desperate grip on his hands, back up at Violet’s Sherlockian opal eyes, pleading with him. “Everyone has a past, Violet. I’m not going to—”

“He’s so much better than he thinks he is. Sherlock, I mean. He has so much more _heart_ than he…Don’t let him make less of himself. You know how he is, you know how remarkable he is, don’t let him trick you otherwise. You’re too clever for that.”

John looked at Violet and promised, “I won’t let him.” And it was true that he was being paid to not noticeably think ill of Sherlock, but when he promised Violet, he genuinely meant it. 

***

Sherlock was playing the violin in their bedroom. It was beautiful but terribly sad. He did not turn from the window when John walked into the bedroom, and John listened for a few minutes before commenting, “Pretty.”

Sherlock didn’t reply. 

John hesitated, then said, “I may take a nap before supper.”

Sherlock stopped playing with a sudden sour note. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, it’s fine,” John answered, turning the duvet down. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Sherlock demanded. 

“Ask you what?” John looked at him as he kicked his shoes off. 

“About Moriarty.”

“It isn’t any of my business,” John responded, and crawled into bed. 

The bedroom door slammed a second later. 

***

Sherlock disappeared. When John got tired of lying in bed thinking about Sherlock and Moriarty, he went downstairs and searched the ground floor, but Sherlock was nowhere to be found. He did stumble upon Violet, having a small supper by herself in the kitchen. She said, “You might try the roof.”

So John limped his way up the stairs to the roof. His cane was still in the boathouse by the pond, making the staircase a difficult journey. It was even worse when he realized that Sherlock was on the roof, and that the only way to get there was to crawl out of a dormer window onto the treacherous, snow-filled slope. 

“Sherlock!” John shouted from the window, but Sherlock didn’t even turn his head. “Bugger,” John swore under his breath, and then heaved himself out the window and made slow, careful progress through the snow across the roof until he reached Sherlock’s side. Sherlock was staring at him in disbelief. John said, by way of greeting, “Bloody, bloody, bloody _hell_ ,” as he sat in wet snow and clung to the roof and thought about falling off and then told himself not to think about falling off. “Why would you sit up here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Chasing after you, you idiot, because God knows there’s no other reason I’d be sitting in _wet snow_ on a _roof_.”

“If one wants to be left alone, one chooses an inaccessible place,” Sherlock snapped, sourly.

“You don’t want to be left alone,” John retorted. “You tell yourself you want to be left alone, but you don’t, not really. You’ve been sitting up here for hours feeling sorry for yourself because no one has bothered to follow you out onto this roof.” 

Sherlock looked shocked. “That isn’t—”

“Everyone has a past, Sherlock. Jim Moriarty, and whatever happened with the two of you whenever it happened, is none of my business unless it’s still happening now. Because the only thing I care about is you, here, now, on this sodding roof in all this sodding snow.”

Sherlock stared at him, and John suddenly remembered that, before this whole thing with Moriarty had started, they’d been rolling around in the snow together, as close to a shag as they could get while still clothed. John blushed and looked away and finished, lamely, “Okay?”

“Why?” asked Sherlock. 

“Why what?” 

“Why don’t you care about it? Because I’m paying you not to?”

John looked at him, confused. “I…” And he realized he didn’t know. Because, truthfully, he _did_ care about it, but only to the extent that it had hurt Sherlock in any way. John didn’t like to imagine Sherlock being hurt, ever. And he wasn’t being paid for that. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly.

Sherlock was silent for a moment. He studied John’s face so closely that John got embarrassed and looked away again. He said, “I _am_ like him. We were well-suited. We—”

John thought of Moriarty’s cold, cruel, flat gaze. He thought of the curl of malice in every word Moriarty uttered. He thought of the way Violet had shuddered over Moriarty, and of how much she adored her younger son in comparison. He thought of Violet worrying that Sherlock undervalued himself. And he did the only thing he could think to do. He reached out and placed a cold hand against Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock stilled, his words forgotten, his mouth slightly parted. John looked into those unusual moonlight eyes and thought of how they could _pretend_ to be cold and cruel but it was all only an act, how underneath John had never seen anyone’s eyes so furiously full of _life_ , of all that vivacious, gulping curiosity. He thought of Perdy the pet partridge, and of the way Sherlock had learned landscape architecture to give them something to talk about, and the way he had taught John to ice skate and not let him fall, and the way he had helped Annabel even when he hadn’t quite seen the point. Sherlock was so many things John could not understand, but the one thing he knew about Sherlock was that he was no Moriarty. 

“You’re not,” John said, gently. “Not at all. You’re more. You’re so much more.”

Sherlock licked his lips and swallowed and looked so thrown that John dropped his hand and cleared his throat. 

“Come inside,” he said. “It’s freezing out here.”

***

Sherlock’s life was a maelstrom of confusion. And he was cooking eggs. 

The seduction of John Watson had been going so very well up until the moment Jim had appeared. Sherlock should have seen that coming. Jim had always had a talent for destruction. That had been one of the things that first attracted Sherlock to Jim. Jim was never boring, and Sherlock had a great lust for things that didn’t bore him. And then, eventually, Sherlock had started balking at things, and Jim had found this hilarious at first, until he’d realized Sherlock was serious, and then he had turned scathing, and then he had accused Sherlock of being just as ordinary as everyone else, and then Sherlock had left. 

And Sherlock had thought. Because he wasn’t ordinary, he could see that quite clearly. If he were ordinary, then he wouldn’t be… Well, he wouldn’t be any of the things he was. His life would be completely different. He wasn’t ordinary. He suspected that, really, he was just like Jim. It was just that he lacked Jim’s courage to embrace this dark non-ordinariness. 

And now here was John Watson, who had sat on a roof with him just to say that he thought Sherlock was _more_ than Jim. And as if he thought that was a good thing to be. As if he thought _Sherlock_ was a good thing to be.

Or he was just _pretending_ to think this because Sherlock was paying him, and that possibility was even worse, so Sherlock was focusing on the first possibility, which was troubling enough.

John was confused, Sherlock thought, frowning down into the pot of boiling water containing his eggs. He had it wrong. John had been playing a role and had tumbled into it. And Sherlock had been playing a role and tricked John thoroughly into believing it. Sherlock hadn’t wanted John to leave, and Sherlock had set out to do everything imaginable to make John not leave, and John now seemed to believe that there were things about Sherlock that shouldn’t be left, and that wasn’t _fair_. Not to John. John, who was so _loyal_ , who _wanted_ to believe the best of people. How had Sherlock deliberately set out to _defraud_ him this way? Why had he done it? 

Well, thought Sherlock. Because John was wrong about him and Sherlock really wasn’t a very nice person.

There was only one thing for it: It had to stop. Sherlock had set everything in motion, so Sherlock could grind it all to a halt just as quickly. No more dates, thought Sherlock. No more snogs, mistletoe-provoked or not. He and John would stay through the sixth, as had been planned, but Sherlock would just…not talk to him. He could manage that. And if Mother or Mycroft seemed to question his never speaking to his boyfriend, then he could blame it on Jim’s visit. They would readily believe that. They fully expected him to ruin everything with John, anyway. It was plain on their faces that they thought John far too good for him and were astonished he’d ever managed to pull him. 

They were right, of course, but then his family usually was. It was what was so irritating about them. 

So. Sherlock would stop spending time with John. He’d beaten back a cocaine habit; surely he could conquer the John Watson habit he’d developed. It was still a very new habit, after all. He could surely live without John. He would start as soon as he’d delivered John his eggs. 

He arranged them on a tray and carried them up to the bedroom and suddenly, feeling dizzy, found himself leaning against the door and taking a deep breath. He thought of John staring down at him by the fire in the library as they discussed crime scenes, dressed in the jumper Sherlock had bought him. He thought of John kissing him under the mistletoe, so sweet and gentle and _lovely_. He thought of John crawling onto the roof just to see him. He thought of John making silly jokes over tea and laughing as Sherlock dissected the James Bond plots. He thought of John’s hands so fierce in his as they skated, of John’s hands tugging through his hair, of John’s hands skimming down his body and pulling him in closer. 

Sherlock had a peculiar moment of panic, so unusual for him, when he thought he might not be able to do it. He might not be able to walk away from John. But this was ridiculous. Because if he didn’t walk away from John now, John would sooner or later walk away from him. 

So he straightened, with one last deep breath, and knocked on the door. John answered after a moment. It was late, but he was still fully dressed, and his finger was holding a place in a terrible mystery novel. He looked down at the tray Sherlock was holding. 

“I’d ask where you’ve been, but apparently you’ve been making eggs,” remarked John. 

“Six eggs, to be exact,” replied Sherlock. 

“Ah,” said John. “Six geese a-laying.”

“Exactly.” Sherlock held the tray out a little more. “Here.”

John juggled his book a bit so he could take the tray, looking confused. “Aren’t you coming in?”

_Go in_ , Sherlock told himself. _Go in and sit there and just watch him reading._ The thought was so delicious, so tempting, that Sherlock felt a little quiver go through him. “No, I…I’m not tired.”

John lifted an eyebrow. “Are you ever tired?”

Sherlock smiled faintly to acknowledge that he thought John meant that as a joke. 

“Listen,” sighed John. “If this is about…the kisses…and…”

“It’s not,” Sherlock denied. 

“I think we need to talk about—”

“We don’t. Good night, John.” He leaned over and kissed John’s cheek, telling himself he was doing it in case anyone was spying on them. 

He was conscious that John watched him the whole way down the hall.


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock was avoiding him. John could draw no other conclusion. He had delivered him six hard-boiled eggs and had barely exchanged two words with him since. In fact, John almost never saw him. John wanted to think that he was worried about this because it was destroying the fiction that they were dating, but he was really worried about this because, well, he missed Sherlock. Things were interesting when Sherlock was around. Now that Sherlock wasn’t around, things were dreadfully dull. John almost couldn’t stand it. When had Sherlock become so vitally important to his mood? 

John tried to distract himself by calling Harry. She answered by snapping, “Leave me alone,” before disconnecting the call, and John supposed that at least he now knew she was still alive. 

He managed to startle Sherlock that afternoon in their bedroom, where it was clear Sherlock had hoped to sneak in and out without encountering him. 

“I thought perhaps we might have another skating lesson,” John suggested, and thought that he sounded pathetic. It was clear Sherlock didn’t want to spend time with him; Sherlock was under no obligation to spend time with him; if Sherlock’s scheme failed because of Sherlock’s lack of commitment to it, then that was Sherlock’s concern. So what was John _doing_?

He felt even stupider when Sherlock said, distractedly, “Sorry, not now, I’m busy,” and ducked out of the bedroom. 

Although John did feel a little bit better when Sherlock stuck his head back in and said, “Maybe later.” As if he’d been thrown a little bone of hope.

“Did Sherlock tell you about tomorrow night?” Violet asked him at supper that night. 

“What’s tomorrow night?” John said, and then realized, “Oh, it’s New Year’s Eve.”

“And Sherlock clearly didn’t tell you that we are going to a party.”

“A party?” John echoed. 

Violet nodded. 

John paused, then said, “ _Sherlock’s_ going to this party? It’s just that that seems not at all like him.”

“Oh, it’s not. He does it because Mycroft and I still have the power to force him to do some things. And possibly because it’s an annual party hosted by another of his father’s great friends. What Mycroft and I cannot make Sherlock do, the memory of his father may help with.”

John turned this over in his head, then said, “Sherlock hasn’t mentioned it. Maybe he doesn’t intend to go this year…?”

“Oh, he intends to go,” Violet said, in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “And he’s going to take you.”

John thought that Sherlock could not seem less inclined to take him anywhere. But he didn’t want to get into an argument with Violet about it. If he could corner Sherlock, he’d ask him about this party. 

Then Violet said, “Did I mention it’s black tie?” 

***

John gave up on the idea of finding Sherlock that night. He wasn’t anywhere in the house that John could see, nor was he on the roof, and John wasn’t going to set out in the garden in the cold, dark night. So John waited until morning, when after a cursory look through the house, he headed toward the wilderness, where he found Sherlock sitting on a boulder that poked up through the snow cover, taking furious notes on something. He looked up expectantly as soon as John came close. 

John glanced at Perdy, who was pecking at some birdseed flung over the snow. 

“Perdy pull through the storm okay?”

“He is quite satisfactory,” responded Sherlock, prim and proper. 

“Good.” John looked at Sherlock and tried not to feel awkward. He thought of how many times he had been with Sherlock and _not_ felt awkward. Had felt, in fact, like he had found the most comfortable place in the universe. He missed feeling like that with an acute ache. “I’m glad your experiment to keep him alive is still progressing nicely.”

Sherlock made a small noise of acknowledgement but otherwise said nothing, continuing to look expectantly at John. 

John said, “Your mother mentioned we’re meant to go to a New Year’s Eve party tonight.”

Sherlock made a face. “Oh. Yes. Tedious. But yes.” 

“I’m going with you?”

Sherlock looked blank. “Of course you’re going with me. You’re meant to be my boyfriend, aren’t you?” 

“Yes. Well, yes. But you didn’t mention this. Your mother said it’s black-tie. I haven’t got a dinner jacket.”

“You do,” said Sherlock, dismissively. “I brought one for you. You’ll find everything on the left-hand side of my wardrobe. It should all be perfectly acceptable.” Sherlock resumed scribbling in his journal. 

John stared at him. 

After a moment, Sherlock looked back up at him. “Was there something else?”

_You brought me a dinner jacket? Why are you avoiding me? Does your behavior now have to do with Moriarty? Is there any part of this that has anything to do with me? Could you kiss me again?_

“No,” said John. 

***

John stood in the drawing room, carefully out of the way of any mistletoe, and envied how comfortable and at home Mycroft looked in his dinner jacket. John felt posh and out of place. His suit fit him beautifully, but he felt like an imposter. 

“He’s going to make us late,” Violet complained. “How very like him. Sherlock!” she called in the direction of the staircase. Then she turned with an exasperated sigh and said, “John, go and fetch him.” 

John didn’t want to say that, given Sherlock’s steadfast avoidance of him, this was not the best idea. Trying to behave like a good boyfriend, he acquiesced and went up the stairs to their bedroom. 

Sherlock stepped out of the room just as John was walking down the hallway. He was dressed for the evening, in a dinner jacket and trousers tailored to that obscenely tight fit that Sherlock favored. He was made for this sort of clothing, John thought, the dinner jacket and his hair and his skin creating a portrait of sleek, seductive, contrasting black-and-white. John, sent off-balance by the sheer level of attractiveness in front of him, reached for a cane that he had ceased to carry. 

“You look…” he said, and trailed off. 

Sherlock looked at him, lifting a querying eyebrow, lips pursed and eyes bright, and John swallowed thickly and tried to think of things that would stop his blood from heading south. 

“Come along,” Sherlock said, evidently concluding that John wasn’t going to finish his sentence, and walked past him. “As it is, Mother will do nothing but complain about our lateness.”

***

The party was crowded enough that you could get lost in it. Which John did. At some point, he got separated from all of the Holmeses, and he had to spend some time searching amongst the party-goers for a familiar face, and when he did, the familiar face he found was not the one he was looking for: It was Jim Moriarty. Moriarty was looking fixedly at someone, with a faintly amused and wholly arrogant expression on his face. John thought he knew who the someone was who had caught Moriarty’s attention, and his guess was confirmed when Moriarty walked single-mindedly over to Sherlock. 

Sherlock didn’t look happy to see him. Moriarty said something, and Sherlock said something else and shook his head, and Moriarty took Sherlock’s hand. He more than took it. He _caressed_ it. John clutched his champagne flute so tightly he thought it might shatter. 

Moriarty tugged on Sherlock’s hand, and Sherlock followed after him, and they disappeared down a hallway together, around a corner. 

_Don’t follow them_ , John told himself, and then followed them. 

He shouldn’t be following, John thought. This was private to Sherlock. It was really none of John’s business if Sherlock slipped away with his ex. A real boyfriend’s business, maybe. Perhaps. And maybe he could pretend he was doing this just to make sure their story didn’t fall apart. But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. He took too much care not to be seen as he peered around the corner. 

They were talking close together, but not so close that it looked inappropriate in any way. It was definitely not an embrace. Sherlock had his hands in his trouser pockets and was not looking at Moriarty. He seemed aloof and disinterested. Or maybe that was John’s wishful thinking. 

“I thought you’d have got bored by now,” Moriarty was saying. Purring, really. “You’ve disappointed me, Sherlock.”

“I’m crushed,” said Sherlock, sounding both sarcastic and oddly exhausted. 

“I understand, of course I do. Ordinary people _can_ be adorable, and people can get so attached to their pets.” Moriarty trailed a finger possessively down the front of Sherlock’s shirt, down his waistcoat, resting just at the top of his trousers. “But you were supposed to be _interesting_.”

“What is it you want, Jim?” Sherlock asked, his voice sharp. 

“Don’t tell me that you don’t know. You know everything. It must be so hard for you to admit you don’t know.”

Sherlock batted Moriarty’s hand away from his trousers. 

“Hmm,” said Moriarty. “Really? But, Sherlock, my dear, you used to _love_ that. In public. A bit of a risk to it all. Used to love _this_ —” Moriarty took a step closer, as if to crowd Sherlock against the wall, but Sherlock side-stepped him neatly. 

“I _must_ have a talk with your pet doctor,” Moriarty pouted. “It’s one thing to take up with someone so dull, but for it to make you so dull about _sex_ —” 

Sherlock caught at the front of Moriarty’s shirt so quickly that John didn’t see it coming. Neither did Moriarty, clearly, as Sherlock raised him to his tiptoes, twisting his grip in the cloth in what had to be a painful way. 

“If you go anywhere near John—anywhere in his _vicinity_ —” 

“Ah, Sherlock,” said Moriarty, and his voice was still mocking, “there’s that troublesome heart of yours getting in the way.”

“I have been reliably informed I don’t have a heart,” Sherlock bit out. 

“We both know that’s not quite true,” said Moriarty. 

There was a moment of heavy silence in the hallway. 

“Stay away from John,” Sherlock snarled, finally. 

“You think you can make me do something I don’t want to do?” taunted Moriarty. 

“I am you, remember? Prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.”

“You _talk_ big,” said Moriarty. “Nah. You’re ordinary. You’re ordinary—you’re on the side of the angels.”

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.”

There was a long silence. Moriarty stared at Sherlock. And then John could see him smile from where he stood at the end of the hallway. “No, you’re not. I see. You’re not ordinary. You’re me.”

Sherlock let go of him abruptly, but it was Sherlock who took the small staggering step, not Moriarty. 

“You’re me!” Moriarty repeated, gleefully, spreading his arms wide in delight. “ _Thank_ you.”

Sherlock swept out of the hallway, giving John just enough to time to duck back around the corner, but Sherlock was clearly so caught up in his thoughts that he was being unusually unobservant. And John stood, staring after him, thinking of Sherlock on the rooftop that day, Sherlock thinking he was like Jim Moriarty, Sherlock who had been reduced to threatening Moriarty because of _him_ , for some insane reason. 

“Look at the pair of you,” said Moriarty next to him, yawning. “So topsy-turvy in your own heads. So _predictable_. Bo-ring. It was foolish of you. It’s a financial transaction to him, and you’ve gone and fallen in love with him. He’ll never love you in return. He’s not capable of love. People like him and me, we aren’t.”

John did not look at Moriarty. John kept an eye on Sherlock, who was making his way across the dance floor, heedless of the couples around him. Moriarty was wrong about Sherlock, of course. But Moriarty was not wrong about John, who had gone and fallen in love with him, against all better judgment. And if Sherlock could try to protect John, then John could return the favor. 

“You should know,” John remarked, casually. “I kept my army gun, and I am a crack shot.” Possibly ill-advised, admitting that, but it was out of his mouth before John could stop it. And before he said anything else, John pushed away from Moriarty, out into the crowd. 

Someone tried to stop him, grabbed at his arm, said, “John! Wait! We’re all dying to talk to you! We want to know who would ever date _Sherlock_!” and fury throbbed inside of him. He’d gone from being jealous that Moriarty would touch Sherlock to being angry that no one else seemed to want to in no time flat. He shook off the hand on his arm and kept moving, saying “Excuse me, excuse me.” Somewhere someone shouted that there were thirty seconds left, and there were squeals and applause and people were searching for one another to be together at midnight, and John kept pushing through the crowd, finally catching up to Sherlock, grabbing his arm. 

“John,” Sherlock said when he saw him. “What—”

“It’s almost midnight,” John said. 

Sherlock looked impatient. “What does it matter? An arbitrary time on an arbitrary night. What does it matter?”

A countdown had started around them people shouting _ten! nine!..._

“It matters,” said John. “All of it matters. Or none of it matters. I don’t even know. He’s right. I’m so topsy-turvy.”

_Happy New Year!_ , shouted the people all around them, bells ringing and horns blaring and singing starting up. 

Sherlock peered down at him, looking like he thought John had lost his mind. “Are you all right?”

“Sherlock,” said John, and closed his hands into Sherlock’s hair and kissed him. 

John wasn’t sure what he’d intended with the kiss, if he’d maybe just intended it to be a simple Happy-New-Year kiss. But he ended up pouring everything into it. _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , he said into the kiss. _I’ve never loved anyone the way it seems I love you._ Sherlock made a noise, a small desperate sound that John heard even through the melee around him and the blood pounding in his ears, and kissed him back hard. Kissed him until John felt light-headed with how much he _wanted_ him. Kissed him until John slid his hands out of Sherlock’s hair, down his neck, along his chest, down, down, down—

Sherlock pulled back, just far enough to separate their mouths, for sound to rush in, for John to realize they were still standing in the middle of a party. Sherlock looked thoroughly snogged, his lips red and swollen and his color high and his pupils dilated and his hair an absolute mess, and he was panting for breath. 

“Take me home,” Sherlock said. 

***

The thing was that they had all come to the party together, one car and one driver, but John didn’t care as he and Sherlock tumbled into the back seat. All he could retain about this was irritation that they weren’t alone in the car, that they couldn’t just fumble their way to hurried orgasms right here, that they had to _wait_. 

“Take us home,” Sherlock gasped to the driver, and John closed his mouth on Sherlock’s neck and sucked. “And then you can come back for everyone else.” 

The car started moving, and Sherlock blessedly stopped talking, turning his attention back to kissing John. John thought this was much the better activity for Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock was a fantastic kisser. John wanted to kiss Sherlock for the rest of his life. At least.

“We’re here,” Sherlock whispered suddenly, drawing back. 

“Where?” asked John, uninterested, still kissing Sherlock. 

“Mmm,” said Sherlock, then pulled away again. “Home. Come on.” Sherlock slid out of the car, then reached back for John to pull him along. 

Which was good, because John felt too dazed with lust to really think. He barely took notice of how they got into the house or up to the bedroom, just that finally, thankfully, they were there, and John pressed Sherlock against the wall and basically started tearing his suit off of him, because now that he had started, now that he had decided to let himself have this, he wanted it _all, immediately_. 

Sherlock made encouraging noises into John’s mouth and kept pulling John closer, rubbing against him in ways that kept distracting John from his goal of getting Sherlock out of all the clothing he was wearing. 

Sherlock finally pulled his mouth away and hissed, “For God’s sake, why are you wasting time with my _shirt_?” and unbuttoned John’s trousers and pushed them down. 

“Slow down,” John said, half-collapsing against Sherlock against the wall when his vision went white with Sherlock’s hands down his pants. 

“No,” Sherlock growled into his ear, following it with a nip at his earlobe and an expert twist of his hand. “Slow is for next time. This time I want it so fast we won’t know what hit us.”

“Sherlock,” gasped John, thrusting now to meet Sherlock’s unrelenting strokes. “Jesus…” He clawed at Sherlock’s half-on-half-off shirt. 

“I want you to want me like you can’t take another breath without me,” Sherlock murmured in John’s ear, and something about his tone pulled John just enough from the edge to cloud reason into him. 

He pulled at Sherlock’s hand, pulling it away from him, and shifted his head so he could look at Sherlock. They hadn’t turned the light on, and the room was barely lit from the moon outside, and John could hardly see Sherlock, but what he could see was how wide Sherlock’s eyes were, how Sherlock stayed so very still, caught between John and the wall. As if he thought that at any moment John might come to his senses. 

“I do want you like that,” John whispered. 

Sherlock made the tiniest sound, so tiny John would not have heard it had he not been so close to him, and when John kissed him Sherlock kissed him back with a heady desperation, his hands carding through John’s hair restlessly. 

John tried to pull them both over to the bed, completely misjudged the distance and also the fact that his pants were only half-off and his trousers were still caught around his ankles, and ended up on top of Sherlock on the floor and not caring in the least. 

“Gorgeous,” he murmured, dotting chaste little kisses down Sherlock’s nose while his hands did not-chaste things with Sherlock’s trousers and pants, and Sherlock distractedly helped him with the not-chaste things while simultaneously trying to capture his lips in a kiss. “Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous,” John said, moving downward, pressing open-mouthed kisses over Sherlock’s chest. “You gorgeous creature.” He tongued at a nipple, and Sherlock mewled and squirmed. “How are you—” John cut himself off suddenly and opened his eyes, looking at the expanse of Sherlock’s chest directly in front of him and trying to catch his breath a little bit. Because he had almost said _How are you here? With me? How are you mine?_ Except that he wasn’t, not really, this was all fake. He thought. Wasn’t it?

“John,” said Sherlock, who had gone still underneath him.

John lifted up his head to look at him, but he couldn’t really see the expression on Sherlock’s face from this angle in the room’s dim lighting. He closed his eyes, and Sherlock reached out to brush John’s fringe off his forehead, to trail his delicate fingers down the side of his cheek and over his mouth, leaving his thumb resting against John’s bottom lip. 

“Don’t stop,” said Sherlock, his voice low and uncertain. “Are you stopping?”

_Never_ , thought John. _Oh, my God, I’d never stop if you didn’t want me to._ He squeezed his eyes shut and kissed Sherlock’s thumb. “No,” he said, hoarsely. “I am absolutely not stopping.” He drew the tip of Sherlock’s thumb into his mouth and sucked. 

Sherlock hooked a leg over John, causing enough friction that John faltered and swore and remembered just how close Sherlock had had him not very long before. “Sherlock,” he said, in warning. 

Sherlock flipped them, taking advantage of John’s moment of dazedness to wriggle more fully out of his pants and then making John even more dazed by leaning down to cover his mouth in a bruising kiss. And then he reached, found, pulled and stroked and his rhythm was punishing, it was _ruthless_. John made a noise into Sherlock’s mouth, frantic and begging, fingers scraping down Sherlock’s back and pulling him closer, but instead of complying with John’s obvious request Sherlock slowed his movements and then stopped entirely. John moved his hips with a helpless, frustrated whimper. 

“Sherlock,” he complained.

“Open your eyes,” said Sherlock, and, when John complied, “Good. Keep your eyes open.” John watched as Sherlock licked at his hand. 

John groaned something unintelligible and fought hard to do it, especially since Sherlock had sat back a bit and was now busy taking care of himself. 

“I should do something,” John managed thickly, although he wasn’t sure what he thought he might do, since he felt incapable of doing anything but sprawling boneless underneath Sherlock Holmes and letting him do whatever the hell he wanted if it kept feeling this astonishingly brilliant. 

“Yes, you should,” Sherlock agreed, shifting his position, and his hand was back on John. John’s eyes fluttered, but he kept them open as Sherlock leaned over him, pinned pinning him with his gaze, and said, “You should come for me.”

Which John did. 

***

Sherlock was heavy, and John was gross and sweaty and uncomfortable, but there was something about the way Sherlock was curled into him, face against the curve of his shoulder, something about the unsteadiness of his breathing, that made John reluctant to push him away. Sherlock’s hands were tight in the shirt John was still wearing, and his lips kept brushing little half-kisses along the skin of John’s neck, and John wasn’t sure that the fine trembling of Sherlock’s body was entirely attributable to sex. 

John closed his eyes and let Sherlock pet at and cuddle him and said, “You were right.”

“I usually am,” Sherlock responded, into John’s neck. 

“Usually? Not always? You’re too modest.”

Sherlock’s voice was laced with amusement when he replied, “I’m really not.”

John laughed, kissed the side of Sherlock’s head, and then had a sudden moment of terror. _What have you done? You love this man, and this is all fake, and what are you going to do when he leaves you and you have to live the rest of your life without him? Why would you do this to yourself?_

Sherlock drew his nose up the side of John’s neck, along his cheek, before kissing him, slow and leisurely and almost tender. “Mmm,” he said, and drew back and looked down at him. “What was I right about?”

John’s vision had adjusted to the low lighting of the room, so that he could make out the expression on Sherlock’s face, and Sherlock looked…pleased. Delighted, even. _Happy_. There was not a trace of smugness there, it was just… _happiness_. _Maybe_ , thought the little voice in John’s head. _Maybe…_

John reached out and brushed a hand through Sherlock’s hair. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

Sherlock’s smile faltered, giving John pause. _Maybe not?_ , thought the little voice in his head, confused. 

“We should get into bed,” announced Sherlock, rolling off of John and disappearing into the en suite with more energy than John could imagine mustering at the moment. 

“What for?” asked John. 

“Aren’t you tired? Wouldn’t you rather sleep in the bed?”

John was in the middle of trying to stretch languorously on the uncomfortable floor, and decided he agreed with Sherlock. He pulled himself up with a little sigh and looked down at his ruined clothing, before stripping all of it off. 

“Where did you get this suit from?” he called to Sherlock. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Sherlock replied, sticking his head out of the en suite briefly in order to toss a damp flannel at John.

John cleaned up and crawled into bed, yawning. He hadn’t been sleeping well to begin with, and that coupled with the sex combined to make him feel like he was practically asleep before he’d finished settling his head on the pillow. He was vaguely aware of Sherlock in the bedroom, fussing about as he usually did, and he thought that it was a little offensive that Sherlock’s energy level had not been affected in the least by their recent activities. 

And then, to John’s pleased surprise, Sherlock sat gingerly on the bed next to him and then lay carefully down, as if worried he was going to wake John up. 

“’m not sleeping yet,” John slurred into his pillow. 

“Is this all right?” Sherlock asked, hesitantly. 

“Is what all right?” responded John. 

“If I…stay in the bed with you.”

John opened his eyes, confused, and looked at Sherlock, who was sitting up against the headboard and looked astonishingly uncomfortable, as if he was unclear how beds worked. Well, he slept so little, John thought, that might be a possibility. “Why wouldn’t it be all right?” he asked. 

“I don’t know, you might want…space.”

“Is this your way of telling me you steal the blankets?”

“I don’t think I do,” answered Sherlock seriously.

John closed his eyes again. “It’s fine. It’s your bed anyway. I should be asking you if it’s all right _I’m_ here.”

“Of course it’s all right,” Sherlock said, quickly. “It’s…quite all right.”

There was something to all this, John thought. Something he was too tired at the moment to wrap his mind around. In the morning, he promised himself. He’d puzzle it all through in the morning.


	10. Chapter 10

Sherlock had been quite capable of gathering enough willpower not to seduce John. It turned out, however, that he was thoroughly incapable of gathering enough willpower not to be seduced by John. It hadn’t occurred to Sherlock that John might kiss him. John had been the one who seemed to be resisting the idea, John had been the one to call a halt that night under the mistletoe, John had been the one who had seemed uncertain that it was a good idea. And Sherlock didn’t blame him: John was intelligent and practical and anyone who was intelligent and practical would have second thoughts about getting involved with Sherlock. 

Which led Sherlock to conclude that John must have decided that he could shag Sherlock without getting involved with Sherlock. And that made perfect sense. It was an excellent conclusion for John to have reached. They were meant to be fake boyfriends, the shagging added a bit of verisimilitude, and they already knew that they were going their separate ways in a short week’s time. No, Sherlock didn’t blame John at all. 

And if Sherlock was getting only one week with John Watson, now that he’d succumbed to the idea, he was going to enjoy every single bloody second of it. Starting with this, right now. _Sleeping_ with John. He felt no desire to kick John out of bed, no dread that he might stay until the morning, only a deep-seated thrill that he was there with Sherlock, a happy anticipation that he was still going to be there in the morning. And not only was Sherlock looking forward to his being there in the morning, but he thought John wouldn’t mind it, either. John might not be in love with him—it would be nonsensical of Sherlock to ever hope otherwise—but John gave every appearance of tolerating him, and he didn’t think John would wake up in the morning filled with regret that all this had happened. 

Sherlock was looking forward to this week with an alarming eagerness. It was all going to be a disaster at the end no matter what he did; he might as well enjoy everything he could now. 

To that end, once he was sure John was fully asleep, he shifted carefully down to the optimum place from which to stare at John, there, in his bed. Sherlock had no intention of wasting any of this magic time _sleeping_. He lay there, watching John sleep. He heard Mother and Mycroft come home and then settle down in their own beds. He watched the room gradually lighten as the sun arrived, and then he experimentally nudged himself closer to John, until his head was leaning against John’s chest. He wasn’t quite daring enough to settle himself entirely on John, but he thought this was close enough. He closed his eyes. From this new position, he could hear John’s heart beating steadily. John’s slow, even breaths brushed against him. It was almost like being _part_ of him. 

He was still lying like that, matching his breaths to John’s, when John woke up. John twitched, his breathing hitching momentarily, and then took a deep breath and stretched a bit. 

“Good morning,” Sherlock said, not shifting away from where he was nestled against John. 

And John didn’t push him away. John said, sounding lazy and content, “Good morning.” And then, sounding amused, “Oh, look, some helpful fairies have put condoms and lube on the nightstand.” 

Sherlock hoped he didn’t blush. He’d never blushed before in his life. Was he going to start _blushing_ now? What was wrong with him?

“I thought—” he began. 

“You are a _genius_ ,” said John, jostling Sherlock as he sat up, and then rolled half on top of Sherlock. “But then, you know that.” John disappeared under the duvet. 

Sherlock blinked in surprise. How could he ever have expected that John would wake up and immediately pounce on him? He’d _hoped_ , of course, but he’d never _expected_ … “What—” he began, a word that ended on a strangled, bitten-out noise when John changed Sherlock’s mind entirely about the necessity of that question. “Oh…you…don’t…have…to…oh,” said Sherlock, forgetting everything—what he had been saying, why he had been surprised, the ticking clock in the background of his time with John—everything except for _John_. When thoughts rushed back into his head after the orgasm, one of them was astonishment that it was the first time, really, that anything other than cocaine had managed to wipe his brain so blessedly clean. 

He struggled to push the duvet away, off of John, so he could pull him clumsily up his body and capture his mouth in a kiss. 

“Mmph,” said John, into his mouth, because apparently he’d been saying something when Sherlock had kissed him, but Sherlock didn’t care about that, what he cared about was that John kissed him back. 

“Happy New Year,” John said finally, when he pulled back. 

“You’re a genius,” Sherlock panted at him, turning John’s words back on him. 

“Flattering,” said John, with a smile. 

Sherlock felt utterly befuddled. John, still in bed with him, sprawled on top of him, _smiling_ at him. How was he supposed to _respond_ to this? He had never had sex with anyone who had ever smiled at him so openly, so delightfully, afterward. “Let’s stay in bed all day,” he heard himself say. 

John’s smile turned to a full-fledged grin. Sherlock decided that had been the proper response. “Won’t we scandalize your mother and brother? Then again, I suppose it will shore up your story some more, won’t it?”

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock, trying to sound like he meant that. “Yes, that’s what it will do.”

He apparently didn’t do a good enough job, because John said, “You okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been better,” replied Sherlock. And, because he meant that with every fiber of his being, John believed him. 

***

John complained, eventually, that he was hungry. 

“But you said we could stay in bed all day,” Sherlock pouted, tucked up as tight against John as he could get. Sherlock had spent the entire day testing exactly how much he could cling to John before John would push him away. John had not yet pushed him away. 

“I didn’t, actually. You proposed that we stay in bed all day, and I said it would scandalize your family. And then you changed the topic of conversation in an unfair manner.”

“There was no further conversation,” Sherlock corrected him lazily, smiling at the memory. 

“That’s what was unfair about it,” said John, and Sherlock, still smiling, pressed his nose into John’s skin. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Boring.” 

“Well, if you don’t let me eat and get some more energy, then yes, you are going to have a very dull evening indeed.”

“Mmm,” said Sherlock. “It wouldn’t be boring if you’d let me eat it off you. I’d eat an entire feast off your skin.”

There was a moment of silence. “Oh,” said John, his voice that pitch that Sherlock was coming to recognize as _oh-bloody-hell-in-two-minutes-I’m-going-to-shag-you-through-this-mattress_. Sherlock smiled, pleased. “Hold that thought,” John continued. 

Sherlock turned more toward John, fully onto his stomach, because if John’s voice had reached that particular pitch, then Sherlock thought he could convince him to forget about eating with just a few well-placed— 

“Stop it,” said John, hand on Sherlock’s head, lightly pushing him away from making contact. “You think I haven’t yet realized what a manipulative bastard you are?”

“Merely observant,” Sherlock defended himself. 

“Manipulatively observant.”

“You weren’t complaining about it an hour ago.”

“And—and frankly, astonishingly—I wouldn’t be complaining about it five minutes from now if I let you get your way. But I’m not going to let you get your way. It’s good for you not to get what you want every once in a while. I’m going to take a shower.” John slid out of the bed. 

Sherlock curled into the space John had vacated and tried not to let John’s words drum into his head. _It’s good for you to not get what you want every once in a while._ Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think, _John, John, I want John, and I’m not going to get him, and I don’t care about everything else I have, there isn’t anything else I want the way I want John._ And it was all worse now that he’d had this last golden little while with him. This could be his life: all this playful, fantastic sex interspersed with John being tolerant of Sherlock’s household demands and helping out with his crime-solving. This could be his life, and he wasn’t going to get it, because John was amazing and could do so much better than a life with Sherlock Holmes. 

“Hey,” came John’s voice from the en suite. 

Sherlock opened his eyes and tried to sound perfectly normal when he called back, “Yes?”

“Aren’t you joining me? I thought you’d insist upon it.”

Sherlock had never been invited to shower with anyone before. He rolled over a bit so that he could see John and asked, “Really?”

“Yes, really, don’t be daft,” said John, and threw him the towel that he had been wearing around his hips. 

***

“So kind of you to join us,” said Violet at the supper table, but she gave them such a beaming smile of sunny approval that John forgot to be embarrassed and instead thought of how terrible it was going to be when Sherlock had to tell his mother that they’d broken up. Sherlock would probably blame John—that would make the most sense—and John found that he hated the idea that Violet would come to hate him for whatever lie Sherlock might tell. 

“It’s a Watson family tradition,” said Sherlock jovially, as he sat. The shared shower seemed to have put him in a much better mood. Sherlock seemed naturally prone to melancholy, but John didn’t know what to make of the fact that he seemed especially prone to it in what should have been an afterglow. 

“Interesting family,” remarked Mycroft drily, not looking up from his newspaper.

“Mycroft, not at the table,” Violet told him. 

“It really isn’t safe for me to be away from the office so close to the Korean elections,” Mycroft informed her, and then, when John looked at him curiously, “Not that you need to know anything more about that.”

“I am unimpressed, Mycroft,” proclaimed Violet. “The Korean elections surely are not happening over supper tonight.”

Mycroft frowned a bit but folded the newspaper out of the way. 

Violet turned back to John and Sherlock, smiling again. Sherlock looked lost in thought, not paying attention, so when she said, “Happy new year,” John responded for both of them, “And to you.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Violet agreed, and her eyes rested on Sherlock for a moment, dazzlingly affectionate. 

Sherlock appeared not to notice. For a genius, he noticed so very little about how people felt about him, John thought. For instance, he had not once brought up the problem that John was crashingly in love with him. Unless that was what he was brooding about after a good shag. 

Mycroft said, “Do they have any other interesting New Year’s traditions, the Watsons?”

“How’s the diet going, Mycroft?” asked Sherlock, mildly. 

“Fine,” answered Mycroft, firmly. 

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. 

“Now, now, boys. I was hoping for a pleasant evening. Sherlock, I thought you might play for us a bit.”

“Absolutely not,” said Sherlock. John noticed he was eating with great enthusiasm. Regardless of his denials, he had clearly been starving. “We have emerged only because John insisted we eat. After this, we are going directly back to bed.”

John felt himself blush to the tip of his ears. “Er,” he said. “Because it’s, er, very bad luck to be out of bed on New Year’s Day.”

“Would that we all had such entertaining New Year’s Days,” said Violet, gravely amused. 

“I mean, because—not for—just, you know, leisurely, lounging around, relaxing activities. You should greet the new year…leisurely,” struggled John, wondering why he didn’t just stop talking. 

Mycroft had an elbow on the table and his chin in his fist. “Leisurely,” he echoed. 

“You know,” John said, lamely. 

“Do I?” inquired Mycroft, innocently. 

John decided this was a losing battle and he ought to shut up. And, anyway, what difference did it make? Sherlock had probably made the remark because he wanted to make sure his family was thinking about all the sex they were having up in the bedroom. Sherlock probably wanted him to say something about reduced refractory periods. Much better for the story they were weaving. 

John found that, although he had been starving, he’d lost his appetite. 

Sherlock noticed. Of course he did. John realized that Sherlock did usually notice the _symptoms_ of John’s love-sickness, he just never connected the dots. Or maybe he just never _acknowledged_ that he had connected the dots. Maybe he knew what a mess John was over him and simply didn’t care. Although that seemed more heartless than the Sherlock John had come to know (and love). John thought it more likely that the idea of John being in love with Sherlock was so ridiculous that Sherlock couldn’t even countenance it. John understood: Sherlock was way out of his league, impossibly unobtainable. It would have been irrational folly for John to fall in love with him, something John knew Sherlock would despise. John was a useless wreck of a man reduced to fake-dating someone for money. Sherlock was ridiculously attractive and painfully clever, with a job he clearly adored. In London, where his life was, John was sure Sherlock was relaxed and self-assured. It was only that he was out of his element here with his relatives, John thought, that gave any impression otherwise. 

When they got back up to the bedroom, Violet giving up her quest to get Sherlock to play something (“Really, darling, not even _Auld Lang Syne_? Fine, good night, then”), Sherlock said, immediately, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said John, looking at the bed. “Who changed the sheets?”

“Harrison, of course.”

“I have to ask: Is Harrison a wizard?”

“You said you were starving, and then you barely ate.”

John collapsed backward onto the bed and put his arm over his eyes to avoid Sherlock’s all-seeing gaze. “I…ate enough. I just wasn’t as hungry as you clearly were.”

Sherlock made a skeptical sound. “You’ll be wanting to eat again in a few hours.”

“That’s how the human body works, Sherlock.”

Sherlock made another skeptical sound, followed by a line of winding, supple notes on his violin. The music continued, stretching over John, and John gradually felt the residual tension from supper leak out of him. Sherlock’s violin was magical, John thought. More magical than Harrison. Truly magical. John could listen to Sherlock play violin forever. It was wildly seductive and madly addictive. Like Sherlock himself. And John had never been one for classical music. He had never been one for blokes like Sherlock, frankly. At least, had never dated or even shagged any like him. Then again, he amended, he’d never _met_ any blokes even remotely like Sherlock. 

John rolled onto his stomach, opened his eyes, and watched Sherlock play. Sherlock had his eyes closed, caught up in the music he was coaxing, his fingers sure and true against the strings, his arm sinuous as it moved the bow up and down. John’s breath caught, a spike of adrenaline bursting through him, blood pounding in his ears. That’s how gorgeous Sherlock was, John thought. Just _looking_ at Sherlock made John feel as alive as he had while ducking away from gunfire in Afghanistan. He had gone half the world away in a quest to feel alive, when all the while he could have solved that problem so much more easily, just by meeting Sherlock. 

Sherlock opened his eyes as he played the final notes, meeting and holding John’s gaze. 

“That was beautiful,” John managed, finally. It came out as a hoarse rasp. _Say something utterly prosaic_ , John told himself. _Break this spell._ “Your mother would have enjoyed that, too, I’m sure.” 

“That was for you,” Sherlock said, which certainly didn’t help break the spell. He put the violin and bow down and sat on the bed by John’s head, looking down at him. “It was _Swan Lake_ ,” he explained. 

John was momentarily confused. Had he ever expressed some sort of fondness for _Swan Lake_? Why would Sherlock play him _Swan Lake_?

And then he realized. “Seven swans a-swimming.”

“Exactly,” said Sherlock, and kissed him. 

***

John was in the library reading the local history he’d given Sherlock the day they toured the town, which seemed an impossibly long time ago. So much had _happened_ since then. So much…ill-advised and utterly marvelous sex, thought John, and just like that he was no longer reading the history but staring into the fire and thinking that as soon as Sherlock returned from wherever he’d gone, John would pounce on him and tug him back up to their bedroom.

And he would never hear the end of it, because he had been the one insisting that they not spend the rest of the holiday in the bedroom. 

“Do you know where Sherlock is?” 

John looked up from the fire and pulled himself away from indecent thoughts, focusing on Mycroft, who was walking into the library, his hands clasped behind his back, looking deep in thought. 

“No, actually,” John replied, honestly. Sherlock had disappeared a few minutes earlier, characteristically without saying a word to John. 

Mycroft stood in front of the fire and regarded John with a close seriousness that made John sit up a little straighter. “He’s pouring you eight glasses of milk,” Mycroft informed him. 

There was a moment of silence. John realized that maybe Mycroft was waiting for John to clarify this activity. “Eight maids a-milking,” he said, helpfully.

“I know what it means,” Mycroft countered immediately, sounding annoyed. 

“Okay,” said John, hoping that his judgment of Mycroft’s touchiness was showing on his face. 

Mycroft peered at him closely. John looked back at him, eyebrows slightly raised, wondering what this was all about. “You don’t seem very afraid of me,” Mycroft pronounced, finally. 

“You don’t seem very frightening,” John pointed out. 

Mycroft scowled. “Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock?”

John hoped that his panic at that question didn’t show on his face. He didn’t think it did, as Mycroft just continued to look at him steadily. _Plan_ to continue it? No. Not likely. Not once Sherlock finished the transaction. _Want_ to continue it? That was another question entirely. 

John chose his words carefully. “I could be wrong, but I think that’s none of your business, really.”

Mycroft’s gaze stayed even and calm. “I’d be willing to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis.”

What was it with the Holmes brothers paying him to maintain personal relationships?, thought John, incredulously. “For what?”

“Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.”

“Why?”

“Because I worry about him,” answered Mycroft. “Constantly.”

John gazed across at him. He was serious. Mycroft worried about Sherlock. A great deal. In a roundabout way, somewhere underneath everything, this was probably Mycroft’s odd version of a break-my-little-brother’s-heart-I’ll-break-you speech. _He is my little brother. I worry about him constantly. You had better not cause him any pain._ “He’s fine,” asserted John. 

Mycroft looked dubious. “Is he, though? So easy for you to say. You’re very loyal, very quickly.”

“No, I’m not,” John denied, because he typically wasn’t. He had never thought of himself as the sort of person who made friends easily, who fell in love swiftly. He didn’t know what any of this was that he was doing over this holiday.

“You know, really, so little about him. I don’t suppose he’s mentioned the drugs at all.”

“The drugs?” echoed John, too surprised to pretend that he wasn’t. 

“No, he wouldn’t have, would he?” continued Mycroft. 

“Him? A junkie?” said John, the idea of it almost absurd. 

“Ah, Sherlock doesn’t prefer terms like that to refer to it,” remarked Mycroft. “How can you possibly function in a relationship with him when you know so little about him? Your therapist says you have trust issues.”

John flinched. He couldn’t help it. “How do you know that?” 

Mycroft didn’t answer him. “Could it be that you’ve decided to trust Sherlock? Of all people?”

“Look,” John began, but Mycroft cut him off. 

“You’ve been lost for quite a little while, haven’t you, Dr. Watson? Your therapist thinks it’s post-traumatic stress disorder, but she’s got it the wrong way around. You’re not haunted by the war; you miss it. You miss feeling alive. You miss having something wild and unpredictable in your life. You miss something Sherlockian. And, luckily for you and your psychosomatic limp and the intermittent tremor in your left hand, you met something just the right size and shape to fill that hole, didn’t you? He’s given you what you were missing. You owe him quite a lot for that.”

John didn’t need to be told any of this. It wasn’t helping, at all, to be told this. He _knew_ this. He knew this so keenly and acutely that if he thought about it too much, he’d lie awake at night worrying about it. He _had_ lain awake at night over it, when Sherlock wasn’t in bed with him. When he was in bed with Sherlock, Sherlock never gave him a chance to catch his breath enough to brood about it. 

He didn’t need Mycroft to remind him how empty his life was going to be once this whole thing was over. He didn’t need to be reminded of the enormous Sherlock-shaped gap that was going to loom over his days. He was dreading it with every fiber of his being. “Are we done here?” John asked, trying and failing not to sound too curt.

“I’m sure it is no surprise for you to learn that my brother does not make friends easily. That my brother has trust issues of his own. He has chosen you. Be sure you deserve him.” 

_He hasn’t chosen me!_ John wanted to shout at him. _All he’s doing is paying me!_ But he didn’t say anything at all. 

Mycroft strode out of the room, murmuring, “I do wonder what he’ll do for twelve drummers drumming.”

John looked into the fire and tried to shake the encounter off. It had been idiotic of him to shag Sherlock in the first place; he had known it would drag him deeper into the mess he’d created for himself. But there was just something about him John could not resist, especially not after hearing him threaten Moriarty on John’s behalf. Sherlock was better than Moriarty, John knew this with unerring faith, but Sherlock had stooped to Moriarty’s level because of concern for _John_ , and that had triggered something in John that had led him to, well, _this_. Whatever this was. 

Sherlock entered the room, carrying a tray with eight glasses of milk and looking very pleased with himself. And then he drew to a halt in front of the sofa and frowned. 

“Mycroft was here,” he proclaimed. 

John thought it was pointless to try to deny that. “Yes. He told me you were pouring me eight glasses of milk.”

Sherlock peered suspiciously at John. “Hmm,” he said. 

“What’s that for?”

“No good ever comes of Mycroft being in a place. Look at the state of the nation,” said Sherlock. He put the tray on the side table and crawled onto the sofa with John, snuggling tight up against him, head on his shoulder. He plucked up the local history on John’s lap. “You’re not going to finish your terrible mystery novel?”

“Not necessary, since you told me how it ends,” John reminded him. 

“I don’t know how you didn’t already know how it was going to end. It was obvious from the image on the cover.” Sherlock opened the local history, to the page on which John had scrawled his inscription. With Sherlock’s head on his shoulder, John couldn’t see his expression, but he wished he could. Then he closed the book abruptly, let it slide to the floor, and settled more heavily against John, turning his head into him contentedly. “Eight maids a-milking,” he said. 

“I know,” said John.

“Let’s just sit like this for a while,” Sherlock suggested. 

_We can sit like this forever if you want_ , thought John. _But would you ask me for forever? Is this because you want to? Or because this is a nice, public room where someone might wander in and catch us in a convincing embrace?_ “Sure,” he said, and held Sherlock close.


	11. Chapter 11

Sherlock was sleeping. John was not. John was lying in bed, listening to Sherlock’s steady breaths next to him, staring at the moonlight outside of Sherlock’s window. John was trying not to think, but he couldn’t help it. 4 January, he thought. In two more days, he and Sherlock would be on their way back to London, would be completing their transaction, would be walking away from each other, would never see each other again. 

Sherlock snuffled next to him, a small and vulnerable sound, and John’s heart actually clenched painfully in his chest. How had Sherlock become so…so… _dear_ to him? He could be abrasive and rude and selfish and demanding, and John loved him so much he couldn’t breathe. 

John found himself slipping out of bed. Sherlock’s breaths stayed steady and even. He found himself pulling clothing on, creeping out of the room, pulling on his coat, stepping out the house’s back door. 

It was cold outside, the air sharp and bracing, and John forced himself to fill his lungs and hold his breath for as long as he could, before letting it escape him in a burst. He felt slightly less dizzy with affection in the fresh air, away from a sleeping Sherlock, and he struck out over the moonlit back garden without really thinking. Maybe he could clear his sex-addled head, he thought. Maybe he could exhaust himself so much that he would sleep when he returned.

John found himself by the pond, and he thought of ice-skating lessons, his hands clenched in Sherlock’s, trusting him, and turned away. And then, remembering more, he turned back and poked his head into the boathouse. There it was: the cane he had abandoned days ago. He hadn’t limped since New Year’s Day. He thought that, as a practical matter, his limp would probably come back after 6 January, and he should be prepared and have his cane with him.

So he grabbed the cane and trudged back up to the house. It was a magnificently clear night. Stars were scattered dramatically across the sky, and John took a moment to note that the very brightest star in the sky seemed to have settled directly over the house. Poetic, thought John. And then, shaking his head at his own silly, out-of-control fancy, resumed walking. 

He did not realize how much the cold had bitten into him until he was back inside, where the heat made his skin itch. He shed his clothing and slid back into Sherlock’s bed, and Sherlock curled up into him, hot against John’s frost-cooled skin, and mumbled, “You don’t need it.”

Sherlock knew everything except, apparently, for what was most obvious: John didn’t need the cane as long as he had Sherlock. John was not confident his treacherous leg would understand that he still didn’t need it once Sherlock had left him. John just said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” 

John smiled at the bloody cherubs on the ceiling. “Yes, you were.”

Sherlock grumbled something John didn’t quite catch, because Sherlock’s mouth was against John’s chest as he grumbled it. And then Sherlock did something John didn’t expect: he shifted to press a kiss over the scar on John’s chest. John, who had been settling into the warmth of the bed, into the addictive familiarity of Sherlock’s mouth on his body, froze. Because in all the shagging they had done, Sherlock had never once done that. Had never once touched the evidence of the gunshot wound that had ended John’s medical career. Had never once even _looked_ at it. Sherlock had ignored the scar not as if he were avoiding it, just as if he didn’t even notice it, and that had been liberating, to be treated as a perfectly normal sexual partner instead of a damaged one. 

“Why does it bother you so much?” murmured Sherlock, his lips against the puckering of skin where the bullet had pierced John’s body. 

“Almost dying?” asked John scathingly. “Why does it bother me that I almost died?” 

“No.” Sherlock lifted up his head, his eyes picking up the moonlight coming in through the window as he gazed evenly at John. “Why does the fact that you survived it bother you?” 

John opened and closed his mouth but could think of nothing to say to that. He should deny it. Only he wasn’t entirely sure that Sherlock hadn’t just said something very true. Something so true he’d been avoiding thinking about it for months. 

“The body heals,” remarked Sherlock. “This doesn’t hurt you anymore.” His fingers danced over the scar. “Your leg never hurt you; there was never anything wrong with it. It’s all in your head.”

John shifted, uncomfortable, suddenly not wanting Sherlock draped over him anymore, not wanting this _conversation_ anymore. Sherlock took the hint and rolled away from him, settling on his back next to John and carefully not touching him. For a moment, they both stared at the ceiling overhead. 

“John—” Sherlock began, eventually. 

“I was a _surgeon_ , Sherlock,” John cut him off, surprised that his voice was not trembling with the force of what he was saying. “And I’ll never be one again. That is not ‘in my head.’”

“You were a doctor,” said Sherlock. “You took care of people, you fixed them, you made them better. That’s what you were, and it’s what you _are_ : a doctor. A good one.” 

John snorted. “And how would you know that? Did you deduce it from the angle of my little finger when I pick up my teacup?”

“No, I’ve deduced it from witnessing your medical skill.”

“My medical skill?” John echoed, turning his head to look over at Sherlock’s profile. 

“You stitched up the little girl’s dog. You did it without thinking. The dog was hurt, so you fixed the dog. And you did it very cleanly and neatly, too. And you soothed the little girl and generally exhibited an excellent bedside manner.”

John looked back at the ceiling, absorbing this. He hadn’t given a second thought to the fact that he had stitched up Spot. 

“You are a natural doctor,” Sherlock continued. “It is so deeply ingrained in you that you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You’re kind to everyone.”

John cleared his throat, thinking he should make some sort of protest. He wasn’t a doctor anymore. He _wasn’t_. “That’s just basic politeness.”

“You’re kind to me,” said Sherlock. 

John swallowed the rest of his protests, turned his head to look at Sherlock, found Sherlock looking back at him. 

“I…” began John, and then trailed off into helpless nothingness. _I’m in love with you_ , he wanted to say. _I’m kind to you because I think you’re wonderful in many unusual ways and I think people have failed to be as kind to you as you deserve._

“You’re a very good doctor,” said Sherlock, seriously, holding John’s gaze. “You take things, you take people, and you fix them. You’re good at it. You were born a doctor, and you’ll be one until the day you die, even if you never wear a stethoscope again. But you should wear a stethoscope again. As I said, you’re very good at it, and it makes you happy. It wasn’t just being a surgeon that made you happy, John. You could have been a successful surgeon without ever joining the army. You liked the immediate thrill of things going wrong around you and being able to do something to fix them. In short, you have always been more of a doctor than a surgeon.”

Sherlock fell silent. John stared across at him for so long that Sherlock fidgeted a bit and said, “That’s the end of my analysis.”

John blinked, realized he’d been staring, and looked back up at the ceiling. He stayed silent, trying to think of what to say, of how to respond, of what all this meant, for him and his future and who he was and who had been and who he might be, but his mind was such a whirl that in the end he could only think to say, “Thank you.” 

***

“I thought we’d go into town today,” suggested Sherlock, so innocently that John knew something was up. 

But John had wanted to go into town and had been trying to come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t arouse Sherlock’s suspicions, so John went along, pleased at how perfectly everything had worked out. 

It worked out even better when Sherlock turned to him once they got to town and said, “I’ve some errands to run. I’ll meet you at the tearoom in an hour or so.”

“Okay,” John agreed, and was a little surprised when Sherlock paused to peck a brief kiss on his lips before sweeping off in a flurry of dramatic coat. 

John tried to ignore the undeniable spring to his own step as he headed toward the tearoom, pausing first to duck into the adjacent music shop. 

When John emerged from the music shop, it was to practically run into Annabel’s father. 

“Hello, John,” he said, pleasantly. 

“Hello,” John replied, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he had no idea what the man’s name was. 

“It occurred to me I never even introduced myself. You went from being a stranger to performing surgery on my daughter’s dog before I could gather my wits. I’m Colin.” 

John shook the hand Colin offered and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you in somewhat more ordinary circumstances. How’s the patient?”

“Oh, causing a ruckus, naturally.”

“So recovering well, then.”

“Exactly. Annabel thinks you walk on water, by the way. Sherlock, too. She thinks he might be a wizard for finding Spot. I’m inclined to agree with her.”

John shrugged and gave Colin a bland smile, because he didn’t know what to say to that. Sherlock might be magical, but only because John was thoroughly smitten. In reality, Sherlock was a very human man, but no one seemed to understand that but John, for some reason. 

Which Colin proved by tipping his head at him and inquiring, curiously, “If you don’t mind my asking…what’s he like?”

“What’s Sherlock like?” John repeated.

“It’s just that he’s not…friendly. Or…helpful. Or…nice. Or…pleasant. Or…well, he’s the opposite of all those things, really. And you’re…not.” Colin looked genuinely confused. 

John felt his internal Sherlock defender bristle into attention, but refused to let loose a litany of any of the fantastic things Sherlock was. Colin would never be convinced by anything John said. And maybe there was a little piece of John that desperately wanted to keep the amazing discovery he’d made in Sherlock entirely to himself. If that was selfish, well, he was a man in love with a man who was paying him to pretend to be his boyfriend, in a ruse that was going to end in a matter of days. He was allowed to be a little bit selfish for the time being. 

“He’s good,” said John, with a tight smile.

“Oh,” said Colin, uncertainly. His gaze shifted past John, and John followed it. 

Sherlock was walking up the street toward them, his face a cold and inscrutable mask. As he got to John, he put a hand on the small of John’s back, stood a bit closer than necessary, and frowned at Colin. John didn’t like to admit that the possessiveness was more than a little hot, even if it was for show on Sherlock’s part. 

“Sherlock, you know Annabel’s father Colin,” offered John. 

“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock. 

Colin looked awkward. “I was just, uh, saying to John that, uh, Spot is doing just fine.”

“Obviously,” frowned Sherlock again. 

Colin looked at John, lifting his eyebrows subtly as if to say, _See what I mean?_ Sherlock’s hand against John’s back twitched, because of course he’d noticed. 

“Well, uh, I guess I’ll be going,” managed Colin. “Nice to run into you. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” John replied, and watched Colin walk down the street before turning to Sherlock. “Was that necessary?”

Sherlock blinked at him. “Was what necessary?”

“Being rude to him.”

“I wasn’t rude to him.”

“What was all that ‘obviously’ business?”

“John, I obviously know who he is. I grew up in this village and so did he. And obviously Spot’s doing well; the dog had you for a doctor.”

“That’s not—I mean, thank you, but that’s not—”

Sherlock kissed him to shut him up. John let him. 

“I suppose you are interested in tea,” said Sherlock, drawing back. “You are always interested in tea.”

“That’s me,” agreed John, amenably. Being kissed like that made him amenable. “Insatiable.”

Sherlock smiled briefly. “We have time to kill.”

“Why?”

Sherlock grinned suddenly, looking alarmingly like a delighted little boy on Christmas. John almost expected him to start dancing about the street. “I’ve procured us tickets to the panto tonight.” 

John blinked. He would not have expected this to fill Sherlock with such glee. “The…panto?” he echoed. 

“Come now, a Christmas panto is just your type of thing,” Sherlock admonished him, good-naturedly. 

“I…don’t know if that’s an insult or not,” remarked John. 

“It isn’t, it’s just the truth. Now, we’ve time to kill before the panto. So I thought you might fancy a cuppa?”

John regarded Sherlock, who looked pleased with himself and good enough to eat. “To kill some time,” said John. 

“Yes.”

“Or.” John turned up the collar on Sherlock’s coat. 

“Or?”

“You could break us into some inappropriate place for a quick shag.”

Sherlock’s lips quirked and his eyes darkened and he said, “Why, Dr. Watson, how very reckless of you.”

“You make me feel that way,” John admitted. Being with Sherlock made him feel the way he had in Afghanistan: so alive it couldn’t help spilling out in all manner of foolish, risky activities. 

“And I do so like that about you. Now. Public building or private? Have you any preference?”

“Seriously?”

“Serious as a murder, John,” said Sherlock. 

***

Sherlock chose a medical clinic, conveniently closed for the day, for the shag. John told him he was insane but didn’t discourage him. Sherlock said that John needed to start associating medical things with pleasant things again. John thought “pleasant” was a mild adjective to describe the shag. 

There was still time for a cuppa afterward, and then for a wander around the town. Twilight had fallen, and the fairy lights draped in various windows and along various doorways were cheerful and festive. They walked hand in hand, and John was unsure whether he had taken Sherlock’s hand or the other way around; it had just seemed to happen naturally. 

There was a small children’s choir singing outside the building where the panto was being held, and John paused to listen. It was a decent choir, and it was even prettier in the atmosphere of the dark Christmastime night. Sherlock huddled against him, and that made everything even prettier. The choir sang _Good King Wenceslas_ and John thought he’d never been happier in his life. 

Then the choir shifted into a modern pop Christmas song and John could practically hear Sherlock’s disdainful eye roll. 

John turned to him, smiling, and said, “Let’s go in for the show.”

They settled in their seats, and John thought how incongruous Sherlock looked in the audience of a Christmas panto. Sherlock looked like the sort of creature who should be subjected only to the symphony. 

“Is it good, this panto?” John asked. 

“No,” replied Sherlock, evenly. 

“Glad you got us tickets, then,” remarked John. 

Sherlock smiled briefly. “No pantos are good, John.”

“Ah. Well, they’re a certain kind of good.”

“Like James Bond movies.”

“Yes,” John agreed, pleased that Sherlock had remembered that conversation, although Sherlock probably remembered every conversation, given his “mind palace.” “Like a James Bond movie.” John looked across at Sherlock’s profile, looking out toward the stage, and said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Taking me to the panto. I know this isn’t your thing.”

Sherlock looked at him, smiling again. “I have ulterior motives for this outing.”

“Of course you do,” John groaned. “Oh, God, is there some sort of case of disappearing props that you’re here investigating?”

Sherlock looked offended. “John. What makes you think I would take such a dull case?”

“Boredom.”

“I haven’t been bored,” replied Sherlock, simply. 

John tried not to look as if that statement took his breath away. 

“Anyway,” continued Sherlock, as if he hadn’t said anything even remotely interesting, “we’re not here for a crime. You ought to be able to guess why we’re here; you are marginally intelligent compared to the rest of humanity.”

“Cheers,” said John drily, as the lights went down and the panto began. And then he murmured, “Ah. I see. Nine ladies dancing.”

Sherlock gestured toward the spectacle on the stage and leaned his mouth closer to John’s ear. “It’s covering ten lords a-leaping, too.”

***

“Nightcap?” suggested Sherlock, when they got back to the house. 

Because John had expected Sherlock to immediately suggest they retreat to the bedroom, he was too curious not to say, “Sure,” and follow Sherlock into the library. 

The house was quiet. Clearly everyone, even the magical Harrison, was in bed. The fire had been banked, so it was throwing off only the barest amount of light. Sherlock turned on a lamp and poured scotch into two tumblers, handing one to John. 

“My father’s scotch,” he said. “He had quite an extensive collection. It’ll take us another few decades to finish it off.”

John didn’t know what to make of Sherlock speaking of his father abruptly when he hadn’t ever really brought him up before. He sipped his scotch and ventured, carefully, wondering if this was allowed, “What was he a professor of?”

“Chemistry,” replied Sherlock, and knocked his scotch back easily. He put the tumbler down on the sideboard with a sharp clink and then turned to John. “Why did you kiss me on New Year’s Eve?”

John had not expected this line of questioning at all. “What?”

“I was thinking, during the panto, that you said, ‘No, no, no’ about a physical entanglement, the entire time, until the moment when you said ‘yes.’ And I thought you just…” Sherlock trailed off. 

_You thought I just what?_ John wanted to demand. Instead he sipped his scotch and then said, “I think, technically, I kissed you on New Year’s Day, not New Year’s Eve.”

“You heard my conversation with Jim that night.”

John put his tumbler down slowly, thinking hard, wondering what he should say, how he should say it, how much he should give away. He decided it was pointless to lie about overhearing the conversation. “I…yes. I saw you go off with him and I…It was obvious that…”

“You promised my mother that you’d watch me when it came to Jim,” concluded Sherlock. 

She had, although that hadn’t quite been the reason John had followed them. But he said, “Yes,” and nodded. 

“I was _young_ ,” Sherlock complained, and pulled an agitated hand through his hair. “I was young and I was…I was… _stupid_.” He bit the word out in disgust. “And it didn’t matter. I didn’t matter to him and he didn’t matter to me—”

“He mattered to you,” John interrupted, keeping his eyes sharp on Sherlock. “You got him to think otherwise, and that’s the neatest trick you’ve ever pulled, that’s what let you _win_ , isn’t it?”

Sherlock hesitated. Then he put his hands in his pockets and said, “I _did_ win, yes.”

“You see it as a competition, don’t you? It doesn’t have to be a competition, you know.” 

“What else would it be?” asked Sherlock, bluntly. 

John exhaled in frustration, sad and at a loss. “A relationship.”

“Do you understand what a relationship is? It’s a negotiation of roles, of preconceived notions about behavior. Act this way, and x will result. Do you understand what little interest I have in acting what is considered to be the ‘proper’ way?” 

“And so that means that, as a result, you have competitions, not relationships,” concluded John. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, lifting his chin a bit, a dare. 

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person,” suggested John, forcing the words past his lips. 

The statement hung in the air between them, and then Sherlock said, abruptly, “What did Jim say that made you kiss me?”

John shook his head a little bit. “It wasn’t…It wasn’t really what Jim said that made me kiss you.”

“Was it what I said?”

“I…I don’t know. Maybe more so than…I didn’t know I was going to kiss you until I did, Sherlock. I can’t give you the cause and effect of it. I can’t analyze my impulses like that. Why don’t you do it for me?”

“Don’t you think if I could I wouldn’t be asking these questions?” Sherlock’s voice was tight with frustration, and it occurred to John suddenly that Sherlock was tormented by the idea that he couldn’t figure out why John had kissed him. When the answer was so obvious. 

John wanted to shout it at him. _I am in love with you!_ And, at the same time, he didn’t understand why Sherlock didn’t _see_ it. Was the idea of it that unbelievable to Sherlock? Was the idea of a more permanent _them_ that unbelievable to Sherlock? That he couldn’t even contemplate it, not even with his magnificent brain? 

“I don’t know,” said John, wearily. “I just did it. I’m sorry I—”

“No,” inserted Sherlock, quickly. “Don’t apologize. I just…You’re not like Moriarty. _This_ is nothing like Moriarty.”

“Good,” said John. “I’d be upset if it was. I’d be upset if _I_ was.”

“You’re not. You’re…”

“Moriarty is a slimy, arrogant prick,” said John. 

“As opposed to me?”

“You’re not slimy,” said John. 

After a moment, Sherlock smiled, then laughed, and John found himself laughing with him. They looked across at each other, and John felt like nothing and everything had been resolved, all at once. The mood was certainly lighter between them, but John thought that Sherlock still did not understand how besotted John was and how much it was going to devastate John to leave him. 

Sherlock just took John’s hand in his and used it to pull John snug against him.

“Let’s go to bed,” said Sherlock, and John said, “Yes.”


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Sherlock disappeared for most of the following day. John wandered through the gardens looking for him, but had no luck, although he did encounter Perdy, who looked offended to meet a human other than Sherlock in his wilderness. Sherlock wasn’t on the roof, nor was he anywhere in the house that John could see. John eventually came across Violet, who said that Harrison told her Sherlock had left very early that morning and given no destination. Violet did not seem concerned about this. She told John that Sherlock frequently went out on excursions, looking for things that would catch his fancy. John didn’t feel comfortable telling Violet that he had hoped _he_ be catching Sherlock’s fancy on their last full day together. 

But John supposed that Sherlock’s absence gave him time to hide the surprise birthday gift he’d bought.

Sherlock wasn’t home for supper, and John was too distracted by the prospect of the following day to make small talk with Violet, so it was a stilted and uncomfortable meal, and John excused himself as soon as possible to crawl into Sherlock’s bed and pull Sherlock’s pillow to him and inhale Sherlock’s scent while he still could. 

He fell asleep that way, and the next thing he knew Sherlock was shaking him awake. 

“Come out on the roof with me,” he said. 

“No,” protested John sleepily, and tried to pull Sherlock into the bed with him. “Come to bed. It’s warm in here.”

Sherlock resisted. “I’ll keep you warm on the roof.”

“No, you won’t,” John complained. “Not as warm as this blanket.”

“Fine, take the blanket with you,” Sherlock told him, and then left the room. 

“Oh, dammit,” groaned John, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to feel more awake, and then dragged himself out of bed to follow Sherlock onto the roof, which had always been the inevitable conclusion. It was icy and treacherous but it had Sherlock on it, so John coped.

Sherlock was smoking a pipe. The end of it glowed red in the starlight. 

“Where have you been all day?” John asked grumpily, settling himself against Sherlock’s side and closing his eyes. 

He felt Sherlock’s lips brush into his hair. “Thinking,” he answered. 

John opened his eyes, looking out over the grounds of the Holmes estate. “About?” he prompted, after a moment. 

“I got you a pipe.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“It’s eleven pipers piping, John.”

“That’s a different sort of pipe,” John pointed out. 

Sherlock’s shoulder lifted in a shrug under John’s head. “But this interpretation involved smoking.”

Apparently they weren’t going to have a serious conversation. John closed his eyes again. “You really should quit.”

“It’s my one remaining vice,” Sherlock said, “since I got rid of the cocaine.”

John opened his eyes. Apparently they _were_ going to have a serious conversation, just not about their relationship. 

“You’re not surprised,” noted Sherlock, puffing at his pipe. “Mycroft told you about the cocaine.”

“He mentioned drugs,” answered John. 

“He would be smug about it. He was the one who…”

“He wasn’t smug,” said John. 

“He’s always smug. He’s Mycroft. It’s practically his middle name.” Sherlock puffed in silence for a little while. “It was another thing I did whilst young and stupid.”

After a moment, John said, “We all have our addictions, Sherlock.”

“The trick is knowing what they are,” responded Sherlock. 

The sentence settled over them, as heavy as a blanket. John wondered what it meant. He wondered what else Sherlock might consider himself addicted to. He wondered what Sherlock considered _John_ to be addicted to. 

He wondered if they should talk about the next day, about what would happen, about how few their remaining hours together were. 

He turned his head into the curve of Sherlock’s neck and said, “Come to bed.”

***

John woke before Sherlock. He spent a little while memorizing the sight of Sherlock’s face, only inches from his, relaxed in sleep. Then he got out of bed and took a shower and dressed, slowly and carefully, as if it were the first time he had dressed himself in ages and he might have forgot how to do it. 

When he emerged from the en suite, Sherlock was awake, sitting up in bed and typing furiously on his laptop. 

“Happy birthday,” John said to him. 

Sherlock grunted. 

Well, thought John. It would be nice if Sherlock were horrible to him all day so that he would fall a little bit out of love with him. 

Then again, John reconsidered, he’d probably just love Sherlock even more, because there was something wrong with him. 

Sherlock closed his laptop and placed it next to him before bounding off the bed. “I’m going to shower,” he announced, as if this were any other morning. 

“Okay,” said John, trying not to sound like he was in a million different kinds of turmoil. “I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast.”

Sherlock had already disappeared into the en suite. 

John sighed and went down to breakfast, first retrieving Sherlock’s gift from its hiding place and placing it on Sherlock’s plate. 

Violet glanced from the gift to John, as John took a seat. “Good morning,” she said. 

“Good morning,” John rejoined. 

“You must be happy to be going home today,” remarked Violet, lightly. 

John tried to ignore the intensity of Violet’s gaze on him. He shrugged a bit, because he didn’t know what else to say. 

It seemed to work. Violet went back to her soft-boiled egg. Mycroft was nowhere to be seen. John fiddled with the cup of coffee Harrison had brought him and looked at the gift on Sherlock’s plate. Maybe he was being ridiculous. Maybe it was a terrible gift. Maybe he should take it back. Maybe—

“Good morning,” said Sherlock, striding into the dining room with a good-sized and gaily wrapped box tucked under his arm. He drew up short at the sight of the gift on his plate. “Is that from you, Mother?” he asked, incredulously. 

“Of course not, darling, I had the herbs you requested delivered directly to Baker Street. That gift is from John.”

“But…” Sherlock looked at John quizzically and held up the box he was holding. “ _This_ gift is from John.”

John had never seen that gift before in his life. Clearly, as with the Christmas present, Sherlock had bought himself a gift, wrapped it, and put John’s name on it. “I bought you two gifts,” said John. 

Sherlock put the box he was holding on the table and reached eagerly for the present on his plate, tearing it open with obvious delight and then lifting the cover off the box it revealed. And then he was silent for a very long moment, staring down at its contents, his face unreadable. 

“Well?” prompted Violet. “What is it?”

“Drumsticks,” answered Sherlock, his voice as unreadable as his face, and then he looked straight up at John. “Thank you,” he said, in a grave tone that made John feel like they were the only two people in the room. 

They weren’t. Violet said, “Drumsticks? For playing drums?”

Sherlock looked away from John, at his mother, breaking the spell between them. “Twelve drummers drumming,” said Sherlock, replacing the cover and putting the box down on the table. He smiled at it as he seated himself. 

Violet shook her head, as if to say that she’d given up on the two of them making sense. “Aren’t you going to open your other gift?” she asked. 

“No,” said Sherlock. “John cannot possibly top the drumstick gift. Harrison? Could I get a cup of coffee, please?”

***

John packed up all his belongings, picked up his cane, and took one last look around Sherlock’s room, at the bloody cherubs on the ceiling and the disturbed floorboards that served as secret hiding spots, at the bed and the desk and the window and the door to the en suite. Had he fallen in love in this room? Or had that happened elsewhere? It was difficult for him now to pinpoint a moment. He could barely remember leading a life before he’d arrived at this house. It seemed as if it had all belonged to someone else, a story he’d read once. 

John took a deep breath and turned away from the room. He counted his steps to the top of the staircase, chanting in his head, _You’re fine, this is fine, you’ll be fine, it’s all fine_ , as he went. He paused at the top of the staircase. Sherlock was at the bottom of it, pulling on his leather gloves, his unbuttoned coat billowing around him as he moved, all elegant impatience, saying something to his mother, something about the merits of different sorts of flour. He was so very beautiful that for a moment John couldn’t breathe, for a moment John thought he might just tumble down the staircase in some sort of dramatic nervous swoon. Then John forced one foot in front of the other and found himself descending the stairs. _You’re fine, this is fine, you’ll be fine, it’s all fine._

“Ah,” said Sherlock to him. “All ready?” His eyes flickered to the cane. “You don’t need it.”

John ignored him, turning to Violet. “Thank you so much for having me.”

Violet hugged him tightly. “Oh, John,” she said. “You must come again. You must convince him to visit more often. Once a year is not nearly enough.”

John squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Violet back and tried not to think that he was never going to see this house again. 

“Once a year is more than enough, Mother,” said Sherlock. 

John opened his eyes and stepped away from Violet, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well. Thank you,” he said again, and then he glanced around the front hall. “Is Mycroft…”

“Already left for London,” answered Violet. 

“Surely you must realize how vitally important Mycroft’s position is,” drawled Sherlock, reaching for the door. “I’ve asked him not to start a war before we get back to London; it snarls up traffic terribly. Good-bye, Mother.”

“You’re a terrible son,” Violet said without heat, leaning up to kiss his cheek. 

Sherlock didn’t respond to that. He did, however, hug his mother. 

“Happy birthday, love,” she told him, stepping back. “You and John should go out and celebrate tonight.”

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock, sounding distracted, impatient to be off. 

_He’s already back in London_ , thought John. _He’s already back to his life there, he’s already forgotten all about me._

Depressing thought, but what about this wasn’t depressing?, wondered John, as he followed Sherlock to the waiting black sedan. Sherlock opened the door for him, and John ducked in first, surprised to find a rectangular box with a bow sitting on the seat. 

“What’s this?” he asked, showing it to Sherlock, thinking maybe it was a birthday gift from Mycroft. 

“I didn’t know you’d taken it upon yourself to do twelve drummers drumming, and I could hardly leave the song unfinished, could I?”

“It’s for me?” clarified John, surprised. 

“Of course.”

John opened the box. It was a carved wooden soldier, old-fashioned, in brilliant scarlet regalia, playing a drum. 

“The drumstick idea was a good one,” Sherlock allowed, “but I thought the soldier angle would appeal to you.”

“Thank you,” said John, and tried not to caress the soldier as he replaced it back in the box. He was going to keep this gift forever, he thought. He was going to _pine_ over this gift. It was bloody unavoidable. He kept his gaze on the box as he replaced the cover far more carefully than was necessary. “So that’s it, then. All twelve gifts.”

“I skipped calling birds and turtledoves,” said Sherlock. 

“I noticed.” John chanced a glance up at Sherlock. He was looking out the car window at the passing countryside. “So do you think it was a success?” John ventured. 

“Yes,” answered Sherlock, softly. “I think it was a success.”

There was something about his tone that made John think he didn’t want to talk any further. So John looked out the window and tried not to suffocate under the weight of the air he was breathing. He tried to remember every single thing about these last few hours with Sherlock: the sound of Sherlock’s breaths, the faint woolen smell of him, the feel of the fabric of Sherlock’s coat fanned out on the seat next to John, brushing against his hand. John closed his eyes and tried to lock all of it away. Maybe he could have a memory flat to go with Sherlock’s memory palace. Maybe he could never forget any of this, if he just _tried_ hard enough. 

Time kept ticking, even though John didn’t want it to, and they reached London, and then John’s flat, where the car pulled to a stop, and John sat in absolute silence, not looking at Sherlock, waiting for something to happen. 

What happened was that Sherlock said, “Here we are,” opened the car door, and stepped out. 

John took a deep breath and did the same. 

The driver was taking John’s suitcase out of the boot of the car, and John stared at it numbly, trying to make himself reach out for it.

“This is for you,” Sherlock said, and for one wild moment John thought it was some sort of sentimental gift, along the lines of the drummer he was already clutching, but when John looked Sherlock was holding out a check. 

A check. Of course. 

_Take it_ , John told himself, and then managed to follow his own advice and reach out and take it. 

Sherlock didn’t let go of it right away, forcing John’s eyes to his. “Thank you,” he said, and his eyes were very blue and very serious. “So much. For this. For…For everything. Thank you. I could not have chosen better.” Sherlock let go of the check. 

John nodded, dropped his eyes, tucked the check into his pocket, and cleared his throat. “It was my pleasure.” Which was basically the understatement of the century. 

Sherlock put his hands in his pockets and seemed disinclined to get back in the car. John stared at a section of the pavement and thought furiously. _Don’t let me go. Ask me to dinner. Ask for my number. Ask if you can see me again. Tell me you love me. Tell me you like me. Tell me anything._

“You’re a much better doctor than you realize,” Sherlock said, abruptly. “Even now. Please don’t forget that.”

That wasn’t what John had wanted to hear, but if this was how they were going to leave things, then John had a parting message as well. He forced his eyes to Sherlock’s and said, “You’re a much better _man_ than you realize. Please don’t forget _that_.”

For a moment, John thought Sherlock might not leave, a moment when John looked at Sherlock and stopped memorizing his face because he thought maybe he might not need to. Then Sherlock inclined his chin a bit and said, “Good-bye,” and a wave of panic washed over John. What was he doing? Could he really let Sherlock go? 

“Good-bye,” John heard himself say, while his internal voice shouted at him, _Don’t. Don’t do this. Grab his hand, kiss him, tell him how you feel, get him to stay, don’t let him go._

And then Sherlock was in the car, and the door closed, and John was frozen on the pavement like an idiot, and he didn’t say anything. He thought to himself, thought at Sherlock, _Please don’t drive away from me._

The car drove away. 

***

Sherlock sat in the car and steadfastly did not look back at John. Sherlock sat in the car and steadfastly did not _think_. Which was quite something, because he was never not thinking, unless there was a great deal of cocaine in his body. Or unless John was snogging him. 

Sherlock closed his eyes. _Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think_ , he told himself. He envisioned himself in the foyer of his mind palace, sweeping the floor into a blank canvas. He was concentrating so hard on not thinking beyond that image that he didn’t even notice the car had stopped until the driver, who’d opened the door, said, curiously, “Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock opened his eyes. “Yes,” he said. 

“We’re here,” said the driver. 

_Here_ , thought Sherlock, and it took him an alarming amount of time to translate the word to _221B Baker Street_. That’s where they were. “Right,” he said, finally. “Yes. Of course. Here.” Sherlock pulled himself out of the car, taking the luggage the driver handed him.

The driver was peering at him. “If you don’t mind my asking, are you all right, sir?”

“I’m fine,” said Sherlock, and walked up the steps to the front door. 

Which was pulled open by Mrs. Hudson, who immediately exclaimed gleefully, “Happy birthday!” and thrust a ridiculous party hat on his head. 

Sherlock tried to smile. “Thank you,” he said, gravely, and walked through the door, closing it behind him. 

Mrs. Hudson’s face had fallen a bit. “But where’s your nice young man? I baked a cake. I thought we could have a little party.”

Sherlock opened his mouth, intending to say that they had broken up. Instead, he heard himself stumbling through an entirely different lie. “He went to his own flat. He was tired. He’s a doctor, you know. He has…” Sherlock waved his hand about, hoping Mrs. Hudson would interpret the gesture however she wished. He had no idea why the hell he was saying this. Mrs. Hudson would never leave off pestering him about John if he didn’t nip it in the bud, but he found he wasn’t quite ready to entirely let go. If he couldn’t have John, wasn’t the next best thing to _pretend_ to have him? 

“Oh, that’s too bad,” tsked Mrs. Hudson. “I’ll bring the cake up to you anyway, shall I?”

Sherlock had no interest in the cake, but also didn’t have the energy to argue with Mrs. Hudson about it. “Fantastic,” he said, pretending that he meant it, and then he headed upstairs with his suitcase. 

He left the suitcase in his bedroom and walked into his sitting room and stood for a second, regarding it. It looked exactly as the same as always, and Sherlock had always loved it, but suddenly it seemed very empty and very quiet, despite how full to the brim with _stuff_ it was, despite the street noise drifting vaguely up through the window. Sherlock crawled onto the sofa and curled into it. _Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think_ , he reminded himself. 

“Oh, dear,” remarked Mrs. Hudson, walking in with the cake. Sherlock didn’t open his eyes to acknowledge her. “You’re not having a strop, are you? Sherlock, where can I put the cake? Every flat surface is covered in…What _is_ this?”

Better she not know, Sherlock decided. He kept his eyes closed and listened to Mrs. Hudson fussing and _did not think_. 

Mrs. Hudson walked into the lounge and, because he could feel her assessing gaze, he opened his eyes to look back at her. Well, really he was hoping to glare at her and get her to leave him alone, but that seemed to require more energy than he could gather. 

Whatever she saw in his eyes, Mrs. Hudson’s gaze turned suddenly soft, and she brushed his hair off his forehead, laying the back of her hand against it. Sherlock blinked in surprise at the gesture. 

“You look terrible, dear. Are you coming down with something?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I’m just tired,” he said, and the _tired_ part was at least the truth, because he felt exhausted. 

“Why don’t I make you a cuppa?” she asked kindly. 

“I thought you weren’t my housekeeper,” remarked Sherlock. 

“Just this once,” she smiled at him, going back into the kitchen. 

Sherlock closed his eyes again. Maybe, he thought, he could fall asleep. Maybe he could sleep the rest of his life. Maybe he could wake up and be 90 years old and have everything be almost over. 

Sherlock’s mobile chimed in the pocket of the coat he’d dropped on his chair, and Sherlock practically fell over himself leaping off the sofa to get it. It was a text from his mother, asking him to confirm he’d got home safely. Sherlock dropped the mobile with disgust and collapsed back onto the sofa. Stupid of him anyway to think it might be John, Sherlock realized. He’d never even given John his mobile number. 

“You’re sure your Dr. Watson can’t take you out tonight?” Mrs. Hudson asked, coming back into the lounge with his tea. “I think it’d perk up your spirits a bit.”

Sherlock sat up to accept the tea and said, “I’m fine.”

Mrs. Hudson looked dubious. “Well. If you say so, dear. I’ve left the cake on the table for you.”

Which meant it was probably contaminated now, thought Sherlock, but didn’t say anything about that to Mrs. Hudson. He nodded and looked down at his tea without any interest. 

Mrs. Hudson was walking out of the lounge, and suddenly everything in her wake was incredibly _empty_ and incredibly _quiet_ and Sherlock, unable to stand it, blurted, “What’s the latest bit of gossip from Mrs. Turner?”

Mrs. Hudson turned back to him in delighted surprise and launched into a story about the cat recently adopted by the gay couple who lived in Mrs. Turner’s house. She settled in a chair, looking as if she were going to talk for a good long while, and Sherlock paid rapt attention and did not let himself think.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

John allowed himself twenty-four hours to wallow, lying on his bed in his depressing flat and staring at the wooden drummer he set up on his desk, next to the laptop with his neglected blog. And then he decided that the worst thing he could do would be to take this new start Sherlock’s money had afforded him and to let it go to waste, putting him right back in the same position he had been, only this time heartbroken, too. 

So John Watson applied for a medical job, for the first time since receiving his discharge from the armed forces. It wasn’t much—a drab little neighborhood clinic where he’d be treating a lot of colds and flu and maybe a terribly fascinating case of strep throat here or there—but it was being a doctor. It would require him to wear the lab coat Sherlock had given him, and a stethoscope around his neck, and he would use the degree he had actually worked pretty bloody hard for, a degree he seemed to have forgotten in the malaise he’d suffered upon returning home. And he convinced himself that Sherlock would be proud of the progress he’d made in just applying for this pitiful job. 

He got the job, much to his surprise—mostly, he suspected, because the head doctor fancied him a bit. John pretended not to notice her very broad overtures and, aside from that, he was surprised by how much he enjoyed the job. He was far over-qualified for it, and he missed the adrenaline rush of his previous medical practice, but it was better than the odd jobs he’d been holding since his discharge. Sherlock was right, not that it surprised John much to realize it: He had missed _fixing_ things, and he got some satisfaction out of fixing even simple things like a sinus infection. John wouldn’t say he was happy, but he thought he might be happi _er_ than he had been before meeting Sherlock. 

Everything would have been looking up except for how desperately he missed Sherlock. 

It was silly, because, all told, he’d only known Sherlock for two weeks, but he missed everything about him. Sometimes John pulled out his mobile and just stared at it forlornly, willing it to chime with a text from Sherlock. John was almost relieved he didn’t know Sherlock’s number, because he would have folded and texted him long before this, and then Sherlock would have had to shake his head at him pityingly, and then John would have felt pathetic and terrible. But John had things to _tell_ him. He wanted to know what deductions Sherlock would make about the lives of the patients that tramped through his examining room. He fantasized about texting Sherlock little details of their appearances and Sherlock texting back, _Yes, of course, he’s an avid fisher_ , or _She’s sleeping with her sister’s girlfriend_. 

He missed Sherlock when he woke up each morning in an empty bed in an empty room in an empty flat. He missed him as he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth. He missed him as he drank his coffee on his way to work. He missed him through every examination of a patient, because none of them were absorbing enough to shut off the part of his brain that seemed permanently tuned to miss-Sherlock mode. He missed him at the end of the shift, when he turned down invitations for drinks in favor of going back to his flat and feeling sorry for himself. He missed him when he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling and listening to London outside and wondering what he was doing, if he was investigating a case, or perching on a roof, or even shagging some bloke who wasn’t John. John fretted that Sherlock probably wasn’t eating enough, or sleeping enough, or taking proper care of himself. What if he got injured somewhere and there was no one to take care of him? What if he suffered a relapse? 

It was mad for him to think these things. Sherlock could have had John to take care of him. All he’d had to do was ask. He hadn’t. John needed to move on, needed to find some other purpose to his life, needed to _forget_. But John couldn’t. John did nothing but _remember_. 

Even if he had wanted to forget, his subconscious had different ideas. He dreamed of Sherlock, of Sherlock’s hands on his skin, of his mouth at his ear, whispering while John clung to him. John woke from these dreams aching and unfulfilled, and started his mornings in unsatisfying showers where the day’s cycle of missing Sherlock began. He supposed it was an improvement over the nightmares he used to have. And at least the limp hadn’t come back. 

He was still pulling his way through his life, as stubbornly as he had before meeting Sherlock, and he knew Sherlock deserved credit for that. But, at the same time, he hated that he had ever met Sherlock. John had preferred it when he’d had no idea such a creature existed, when the only thing he longed for was the thrilling purpose of Afghanistan. 

***

Sherlock played the violin around the clock at first, sometimes composing, sometimes just mindlessly cycling through Mozart, barely hearing the notes he was coaxing from the instrument. Sometimes it was just a tuneless motion of the bow over the strings, something to occupy his fingers. 

The violin, Sherlock admitted finally, was not going to help. 

Sherlock hung about New Scotland Yard like a desperate puppy, begging Lestrade for cases, and Sherlock would have been embarrassed about this, but he was worried about what would happen if he went home without one. Lestrade seemed to sense the desperation and threw cases at him, but none of them were the least bit interesting. Sherlock could solve all of them in five minutes, and that still left twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of the day to fill, not to mention all the days that were to come. 

It grew unbearable to be out of the flat, so Sherlock holed himself up at home. He curled himself into the familiarity of the sitting room at 221B and tried to let it soothe him, but he got nowhere. His skin itched. No, not his skin, the _individual cells_ of his skin. Sherlock imagined that he could feel every molecule of his epidermis, and then his dermis, down to his subcutaneous tissue. He curled into a ball and took deep breaths and tried not to think, but he had always been so terrible at it, so terrible at it. His mind was so full of John that he could not drive it out, no matter what he did. He saw John constantly, heard his footfall on the stairs, felt his phantom fingers brush through his hair. Sherlock’s brain re-played every kiss they’d ever shared, every conversation, every time John had smiled at him, every time John had _looked_ at him, every moment of John was on constant repeat and he _could not shut it off_ and if he didn’t get it out of his brain he was going to go mad. 

Cocaine would help, and he knew it would help, and so he stayed locked in the flat and refused to go out, out in the world where the cocaine dwelled. It would be a blessed and wonderful relief, but it would make him forget _John_ , for however long the high lasted, and as much torment as Sherlock was currently in, the thought of willingly wiping _John_ from his brain was beyond his capabilities. He wanted to get the pain of losing John out of his head; he never wanted _John_ to leave his head. 

“Oh, God,” he said, on the day Mycroft arrived, without turning away from the back of the sofa, to which he’d pressed his face. “Mrs. Hudson rang you, didn’t she?”

“Mrs. Hudson is worried about you.” Sherlock heard Mycroft cross the room and pull open the drapes in a no-nonsense manner. The room around Sherlock got brighter, so Sherlock closed his eyes. “She says you have not left the flat in a week.”

Sherlock said nothing, because Sherlock wasn’t interested. 

“She’s very concerned that you may have broken up with your young man,” continued Mycroft. “I am to tell you, and I quote, that you ‘shouldn’t get it into your head that you’re not good enough for him, because that simply isn’t true.’ Your landlady is a veritable Athena.”

Sherlock couldn’t tell if Mycroft was being sarcastic or not, which would have been odd, except that Sherlock supposed he was not functioning at full capacity. 

“Lestrade also rang me, you know. To say you’d been a bit of a wreck with him and then disappeared utterly and were no longer answering your mobile. I trust you can deduce the conclusions he reached. He offered to provide me with a team to sweep the flat.”

“The flat’s clean,” said Sherlock, dully. 

“Obviously. Because you’re in a state in which you would be high if you could easily get your hands on something.”

“Go away,” said Sherlock. 

Mycroft ignored him. “What is this about? _Is_ it about John?”

“It’s not about John.” Sherlock didn’t even know why he bothered with the lie. It took skill to lie to Mycroft on a good day; there was no way he was fit for the task in his current state. 

There was a moment of silence. Mycroft sighed. “You know, it would almost have been easier for me if I’d come in to find you under the influence of some chemical. Then I could have taken you to hospital and from there to rehab. I don’t know what to do for you in this state.”

“No one’s asking you to do anything,” Sherlock snapped. 

Miraculously, Mycroft left. 

Sherlock was uncertain how long the flat was wrapped in blessed silence. It was hard to keep track of the days, and Sherlock wasn’t interested in investing the energy to do so. But eventually someone else arrived in the flat, and bypassed the sitting room entirely in favor of clattering around the kitchen. Making tea, Sherlock deduced, but Mrs. Hudson would have spoken to him on her way into the kitchen, so it wasn’t Mrs. Hudson. 

Curiosity got the better of Sherlock, and he rolled over on the sofa in time to see his mother walking into the lounge carrying two cups of tea. 

“Oh, good,” she said, pleasantly. “You’re awake.”

Sherlock blinked at her stupidly. His mother had _never_ come to his flat. Ever. His mother commanded him to come to her, not the other way around. 

“Sit up and drink your tea, darling,” she prompted him, sitting in his chair with her own tea. “I made it extra milky for you.” 

“Mycroft rang you,” Sherlock deduced, in astonishment. “ _This_ was what Mycroft thought would help? Ringing _you_?”

His mother put her teacup down with a sharp clack and said, “Yes. Sherlock Holmes, sit up and drink your tea.” 

Sherlock didn’t sit up or drink his tea. He looked across at his mother and heard himself say, “I’ve made a terrible mess.”

His mother’s face softened. She stood and walked over to the sofa and squeezed her way onto it with him, and then did something he could never remember her doing before, which was to settle his head in her lap and brush at his hair. “I know, love,” she said, and dropped a kiss in his hair. 

Sherlock walked briskly through the halls of his memory palace, trying to find a precedent for all of this overt physical affection and failing miserably. Maybe, when he had been a toddler…?

“Oh, Sherlock, why didn’t you _tell_ him?” she asked. 

Sherlock wanted to play dumb. Or deny it or say there was nothing to tell. But it was ridiculous to attempt to do so at this point, and anyway there was something comforting about this situation. His mother did not sound scolding or judgmental or disdainful or scathing or any of the things he might have expected when confronted with all of his stupidity, and her hand kept stroking through his hair, and it was nice not to be alone, to have someone to whom he could say the thoughts in his head. “How could I have told him?”

“Really?” responded his mother, a touch of wryness to her voice. “Are you going to plead shyness? I’m afraid you have lost all reputation for bashfulness when it comes to Dr. Watson, considering your flagrant refusal to spend more than an hour or so at a time out of bed with him.”

“What good would it have done to tell him?” asked Sherlock. “What would he have said?”

“He would have said that he loved you, too, you silly idiot,” she said. 

“Because I tricked him into—It doesn’t matter. I was unfair to him. I turned him all around with so many lies and half-truths…And he deserves better than that.”

“So you think John Watson is going to find himself some nice, stable young man? A barrister, perhaps? They’ll get a stodgy little house and take turns making roast chicken for dinner. Is that what you think?” 

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“You fell in love with him because you recognized that what he needs is the exact opposite of all of that. Which is what _you_ are.”

Sherlock shook his head. He wanted to tell his mother that she was biased, but that was such stating of the obvious that he thought it would serve no real purpose. So he said instead, “I don’t know what to do. And I _always_ know what to do.”

“What do you want, darling?”

“I want him to be happy,” answered Sherlock, immediately. “I want him to be the happiest human being who ever lived. I’ve been trying to think how to ensure that, but I can’t—I could send him more money; that might help. Or I could find a medical procedure that would allow him to be a surgeon again. Or I could invent a bloody time machine and stop him being shot at all.” 

“Oh, Sherlock. Why does it have to be so difficult?”

“Because happiness isn’t _easy_ , Mother,” he pointed out.

His mother was silent for a second. Then she said, evenly, “You’re going to sit up and drink this cup of tea I made for you. When you’re finished with that one, perhaps you’ll drink another. Maybe, in a few hours, you’ll drink another. There will be so many cups of tea, Sherlock, stretching into your future. And eventually you’ll pick one up and you’ll realize that you didn’t think of him when you did it. I give you this hypothesis,” she said. “Now prove it, my darling boy.” 

***

One day John Watson came home after his shift, prepared to watch mindless telly and sulk about how much he missed Sherlock, to find Violet Holmes standing in the middle of his flat. 

“It’s a dreary place, isn’t it?” was what she said to him. 

He gaped at her for a moment, and then said, “Violet. How did you…?”

“My sons have a terrible habit of attributing all their cleverness to their father. I let them, of course, because it’s convenient to be underestimated. So, for instance, it was so incredibly simple to lead my younger son to believe that I was going to set him up. He would believe such a thing of me. He would believe that I would push him together with any halfway decent fool that I could find. As if I were that addle-minded an old lady to think that would ever work. I told Sherlock I would set him up if he didn’t bring a boy home. I had no one to set him up with. I knew Sherlock would bring home a boy. What’s more, I knew he would bring home the _right_ boy.”

John swallowed and wondered what Sherlock had told Violet had happened to their relationship. Because Violet was clearly furious. She was speaking in quick, clipped syllables that shattered like ice when they hit the air. “Violet,” he began. 

“We knew he was paying you. We knew it wasn’t a real relationship. The idea that Sherlock ever thought he could trick us! Well, maybe he knew he couldn’t trick Mycroft. I’m sure he underestimated me as usual. I knew it was exactly what he would do. He would try to trick us into thinking he’d found a boyfriend. He thought he would win that way: I would back off, and nothing would change about his life. But what I also knew is that Sherlock would know that the ruse had to be convincing. He couldn’t show up with just anybody, because he knew that even I would see through that straightaway. Sherlock would have to search high and low for the right person, someone plausible, someone we could believe might hold his interest, someone we could believe he might love. And in searching for that person, Sherlock, as I knew he would, found someone who could hold his interest, found someone he could love. Sherlock found you. And so, you see, I thought my plan had worked splendidly, except that I have just come from my son’s flat, and he is in a sorry state, as are you. I love Sherlock, but he is a mess when it comes to emotional matters, so, forgive me, but I feel I must lay blame at your door.” Violet crossed her arms and gave him a look that made John scramble to come up with a response. 

What he said was, lamely, “I…I don’t…I…”

“Did you think he would ever say anything to you? _Him_? His first love was Jim Moriarty; do you think he had any sodding idea what to do with affairs of the heart after that? He’s convinced himself that you’re better off without him, that he tricked you into falling in love with him under some sort of false pretenses.”

“He didn’t trick me. But I’m not sure you…” John floundered helplessly. How to explain that people like Sherlock Holmes didn’t end up with people like John Watson?

Violet cut through all of it. She said, sharply, “Are you _happy_ , John?”

John thought it would be impossible to stand here, in this flat where he was dying day by day, and lie. “No,” he said, in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

Violet closed her eyes and relaxed her posture a bit, as if that had been a magic word. She sighed and said, softly, “Oh, the two of you suit each other perfectly. You are both making this so _hard_.” She opened her eyes and walked over to John and took his hands in hers. John let her, couldn’t think how not to let her, wasn’t sure he didn’t want to let her. “Do you know how a mother’s heart breaks when her child says to her that happiness isn’t easy? It’s a mother’s job to protect her child from that lesson. It’s a mother’s job to give him so much happiness that he thinks it’s the easiest thing in the world. And I didn’t…I didn’t…” Violet blinked rapidly, and John realized that she was on the verge of tears. “And the thing is that it _is_ easy,” she continued, speaking quickly, as if worried she wouldn’t get it all out. “It’s hard before you meet, but after you have met, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I asked Sherlock what would make him happy, and he said he would be happy if _you_ were happy. He said he wants you to be the happiest human being who ever lived.” 

John stared at her, hardly daring to believe that was true. It was like asking Father Christmas for a pony and then finding one under his Christmas tree. How could it _possibly_ be true? “That’s what he said?”

“That’s what he said. That’s what would make him happy. So I think the only question that remains is: John Hamish Watson, what would make _you_ happy?”

***

John remembered nothing about the cab ride to Baker Street. He threw money at the cabbie and knocked so insistently on the door that he almost fell on top of Mrs. Hudson when she finally opened it. 

“Dr. Watson,” she said, sounding shocked. 

“Is Sherlock in?” he gasped at her. 

Mrs. Hudson frowned at him thunderously. “Of course he’s in. Where else would he be? He’s been holed up there (ever since you broke his heart.”

John didn’t wait to hear the conclusion of this speech. He was already taking the steps two at a time, bursting into the door he found at the top of it. And he didn’t even know what room he was in, just that Sherlock was in it, on a sofa, suspended in the action of sitting up. He was staring at John, might even have said John’s name in surprise. John dropped to his knees by the sofa and kissed him. And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until Sherlock was gasping and making those tiny little noises that drove John mad. 

“It’s you,” John panted at him, dropping frantic kisses all over Sherlock’s face. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” John pulled back, looked down at Sherlock’s astonished face. “You’re what makes me happy. You would make me the happiest human being who ever lived.”

Sherlock blinked. “Have you lost every bit of your mind?”

“No.” John shook his head. “No. Sherlock. You weren’t playing a role, and you weren’t tricking me, I know you weren’t. How could you not see that? You were _you_ , the whole time, and you’re _wonderful_. I don’t want another version of you, I don’t want any other person, how would I ever find anyone to compare to you? I was so lost, and I was so confused, and I was so alone, and then there was you, and whenever I looked at you I felt…safe. Like I was coming home. And I haven’t been home, in such a very long time. I went halfway around the world looking for something that would make me feel as alive as you make me feel, as happy as you make me feel. I love you.” John drew in a shaky breath, wondering if he had stopped to breathe at all since Violet had told him how Sherlock felt. “I am so in love with you. I think I was in love with you before we ever even got to the house, and I fell more in love with you every day, every moment, I _love_ you. And I don’t care if you think I’m barking mad, I will stay here in this flat and I will snog you over the breakfast table every single morning and shag you into the mattress every single night and I will be the happiest human being who ever lived. And that will make you happy. And we’ll be happy together.” 

Sherlock was silent for long enough for fear to take root in John’s heart, and then Sherlock pulled him in. Not for a kiss. He pulled him in so that he could press his head into John’s chest and take a shaky, labored breath that John felt reverberate through him. 

“I missed you,” said Sherlock, against him. “I missed you so much. I…I…”

“Shh,” said John into Sherlock’s hair. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. I’ll never leave you again.” 

Sherlock’s breath caught. He kept his face in John’s chest, and John stroked at the curls on the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “I play the violin when I’m thinking,” mumbled Sherlock. 

“I know that.”

“Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. Will that bother you?”

“Sherlock.” John pushed Sherlock gently away from him so that he could see his face. “I know who you are. I know who you are better than _you_ know who you are. I won’t leave. I won’t deny that you’ll probably drive me a bit mad sometimes, so I might have to go and take a walk or something. But I’ll come back. I will always come back. Make me happy, Sherlock.” 

Sherlock looked at a helpless loss. “I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do,” said John, and leaned his head down into the curve of Sherlock’s neck, burrowing there against his shoulder. “Yes, you do,” he said again. “You do it automatically. You do it by _existing_.”

“You’ll tell me if I do something wrong?” asked Sherlock, but he was cuddling John closer, and John knew that he had no intention of pushing John now. 

“I’ll tell you,” John agreed. 

Sherlock took a deep breath, then said, in a great rush, “So if I told you that you should move in here with me, would that be…making you happy, or doing something wrong?”

John lifted his head so he could look in Sherlock’s eyes when he said, “It would make me happy. Very happy. I could stop missing you so bloody much.” John leaned forward and kissed Sherlock, who kissed him back with a fierce and pleased possessiveness that John liked. When John broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s and asked, “Does this mean that I ought to give you your money back?”

***

“My mother came to see you,” said Sherlock. 

John, eyes closed, felt Sherlock’s voice rumble through the chest his head was pillowed on. “Mmm,” he said. “That obvious?”

“You came in babbling about what would make you the happiest human being who ever lived. Which was an aspiration I’d told only to her. So yes: obvious. What I don’t understand is what she said to you.”

Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled. John shifted so that he could see his face in the moonlight spilling in through the bedroom window. “She said that all you wanted was for me to be happy.”

Sherlock looked at him, frowning. “You didn’t realize that earlier?”

John tenderly traced a finger over the bow of Sherlock’s mouth. “No. I thought that there was no way you could ever be in love with me.”

“How could I _not_ be in love with you?” demanded Sherlock. 

“Look at you, Sherlock. And look at me.”

“You’re not making sense,” said Sherlock, frustrated. “I mean, you have it the wrong way around. That’s the reason that I didn’t think you would be in love with me. Because I’m just me and you’re… _you_.”

“And that’s part of why I love you,” John smiled. He leaned his head back down onto Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s breathing was even and deep and the rhythm of it lulled John. He could think of nothing more wonderful than being here, with Sherlock, spending every night this way for the rest of his life. And that seemed possible now.

John was almost asleep when Sherlock said, “And you’re sure this is what you want?”

“It’s the only thing I want. You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same.” A thought occurred to him, and he was suddenly much more awake. “What about you? What if you change your mind?”

“I won’t,” said Sherlock. “You can ask me every day, if you want, and the answer will stay the same. I will keep you for as long as I can make you happy.”

“Then you’ll keep me forever,” said John.


	14. Coda

Coda

John and Sherlock awoke at the same exact moment, because that was the moment when the birds burst riotously into song. 

“My God, they’re loud,” John groaned, irritated. He’d been in the middle of a good dream. Then again, he reconsidered, now he could just wake up and recreate that dream, so maybe the birds had done him a favor. John shifted so he could plant a line of small kisses along Sherlock’s shoulder and chest. 

Sherlock clearly wasn’t paying attention to him. “They’re very loud,” he agreed, slowly. “They’re… _extremely_ loud.”

John realized that Sherlock was actually right. Rather than telling him to drop it, John lifted his head, frowned in confusion and said, “Are they in your _flat_?”

Sherlock leaped out of bed, pausing to grab a dressing gown from the floor, stumbling into it as he exited the bedroom. John momentarily mourned the presence of clothing, then decided he would set precedent by refusing to put clothing on, and followed Sherlock out into the sitting room naked. 

There were birds. A half-dozen of them. Fluttering about in ornate cages and making quite a racket. 

“Sherlock!” called Sherlock’s landlady from down below. “Is everything all right up there?”

John’s eyes widened in sudden panic that she might be about to come upstairs, and he dashed back into Sherlock’s bedroom to pull on enough clothing to be presentable, listening to Sherlock call back down, “Yes, we’re quite all right.”

“It’s just that it sounds like you’ve got a whole flock of birds up there,” replied Mrs. Hudson. 

“I have,” replied Sherlock. 

John pulled open the bedroom door to find himself face-to-face with Mrs. Hudson. 

“Oh,” she said, pleasantly, looking not at all embarrassed, while John blushed and tried not to stammer and was glad he’d gone to get dressed. “Good morning, Dr. Watson.”

“Good morning,” he managed to respond. 

Mrs. Hudson’s attention had shifted to the caged birds, and John didn’t blame her. They were definitely the most interesting things in the flat. 

“Four calling birds,” said Sherlock. “And two turtledoves.”

John looked at him in surprise. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Did you order them?”

“Of course not. I’d no idea you were showing up here, and when have I had time since?”

“Maybe when I was sleeping?” John suggested. 

“Did _you_ order them?” Sherlock countered. 

“Of course I didn’t order them.”

“Then perhaps we ought to read the card,” Sherlock remarked, gesturing to a shiny red card tied to the nearest cage with gold ribbon. 

John stepped past Mrs. Hudson to open it and read out loud from the silver curly-cue handwriting he found inside the card, “For Sherlock and John. Happy Christmas.” John looked up. “That’s it. It’s not signed. There’s just a silver snowflake stamped at the bottom.”

“Christmas?” echoed Mrs. Hudson. “Christmas was weeks ago.”

Sherlock had come over to stand beside John and was frowning down at the card. “Well, that’s quite impossible.”

“What’s impossible about it?”

“All of it. How would someone have smuggled birds into my flat? _My_ flat? Without my noticing? Without either of us noticing? Noisy birds like this. Past Mrs. Hudson. We’re on the first floor, John, and they didn’t come through a window with those heavy, enormous cages. Did you let them in, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Of course I didn’t.” Mrs. Hudson looked offended. “We haven’t discussed pets, Sherlock; I really think you ought to have consulted me before buying them.”

“I didn’t buy them!” protested Sherlock. 

“They just…appeared here. Magically. Overnight,” said John. 

“Of course they didn’t,” grumbled Sherlock. “That’s impossible.”

John looked from the birds to Sherlock, who was growing increasingly disgruntled over this conundrum. Sherlock was adorable when he was genuinely perplexed. John grinned at him. “Maybe they came down the chimney.”

Sherlock glared at him. “Now you’re just being preposterous.”

“Come down the chimney?” echoed Mrs. Hudson. “What, like from Father Christmas?”

John shrugged. “Have you got a better explanation?”

“Father Christmas,” scoffed Sherlock. “That’s _impossible_.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I got everything I asked for this year.” John smiled at Sherlock fondly. 

Sherlock was too deep into the mystery to flirt back. “This is Mycroft’s doing. Somehow. I’ll prove it.” Sherlock procured a magnifying lens from the mess on his desk and proceeded to study minutely every inch of the birds’ cages, while the birds twittered about inside them. 

Mrs. Hudson, shaking her head, retreated downstairs, and John thought the likelihood that she would insist Sherlock get rid of the birds was nonexistent. When John saw the state of the kitchen, he underlined that conclusion. Any landlady who let the kitchen look like _that_ …

John figured out how to make tea in the chaos and carried cups out for him and Sherlock, and then he sat in a cozy armchair by the fire. The local history he’d given Sherlock was resting on the end table, and the dozen drumsticks that had been Sherlock’s birthday gift were piled around it, and John felt his heart clench as he realized that Sherlock had kept it all so close to him, so out in the open, so _present_ , a constant reminder, like the wooden soldier in John’s flat. 

John looked back at Sherlock, lost in investigational mutterings, and fancied he could hear in the distance a choir of angels singing and a mirthful _ho-ho-ho_.

 

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly intended this to be a quick little ficlet. And I suppose it *is* quick by my somewhat ridiculous standards. I swear, I start out everything I write thinking, "Oh, this'll just take a couple of chapters," and then *this* is what happens: I finish posting a Christmasfic sometime in February. I suppose I could have waited until next holiday season to unleash this on all of you, but by next holiday season we'll have new Sherlock (right? RIGHT?), so we won't need gifts like this fic as much. (I hope.)
> 
> Anyway, I thank all of you for reading. You have been a delight. I tried to post this fic as quickly as possible so that it wouldn't be ridiculously late in the year when I finished, so it went up pretty much as I was finished writing it and thank you for dealing with a product that was maybe somewhat less polished than I usually produce. Thank you to dashcommaslash for helping me with that, poking through the mess, which frequently I hadn't even read through myself before I sent off to her. Because I posted so quickly, I have fallen abysmally far behind in responding to comments. Someday I will catch up, but, until that joyous day, please know that I am reading and taking delight in every single comment, and I *am* working on getting back to you, I swear!
> 
> I had never posted a fic while it was being written before, and I'd kind of always wanted to try it, and this was very fun. The idea for the plot was a very vague one in my head--I actually didn't come up with the Twelve Days of Christmas gifts idea until I got to the chapter where Sherlock takes John to meet Perdy--and it was kind of fun trying to make it up as I went along and being unable to go back and change things. Sometimes people had such lovely ideas about what could be coming next that I was like, "Damn! I wish I'd thought of that!" So there's not nearly as much Moriarty plot in this fic as there could have been, but that's because I am *lazy,* and all of your ideas about how Moriarty might come back were all good ones. Of course, if I'd done more of a Moriarty plot, I would have finished this fic in July sometime...
> 
> Thank you to all of you who contributed Christmas trope ideas as I was writing. I think I hit almost all of them that were suggested to me! I seldom write fics (I hope) where the characters are *so* *incredibly* *stupid* for *so* *long* about what's going on between them. (Okay, Sherlock is currently being a bit thick in the Schoolboy Saga about how much John loves him, but Sherlock is also very *young* in the Schoolboy Saga.) Anyway, it's actually really hard to come up with halfway decent justifications for why characters would spend so long not seeing the obvious. No wonder those Hallmark Christmas movies are all, like, 70 minutes long (with commercials), because it's hard to keep coming up with obstacles. But, ridiculous misunderstandings aside, writing this fic at least gave me a new appreciation for things like the trope of an ice skating lesson, or a gift from Santa, or hot chocolate by a cozy fire, or mistletoe. Those tropes all became tropes because, once upon a time, they really, really, really worked. And, sometimes, it turns out, there really is no need to reinvent the wheel. 
> 
> Early on a reader said something about John Watson reaching an epiphany in this fic, and part of me still wishes I'd called this fic John Watson's Epiphany. Other than that, though, I think I'm pleased with how it came out, and I hope all of you are, too, because it really was written for *you.* VERY BELATED MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU! AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT! :-)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326784) by [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)




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